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'GENERAL" JOSEPH SMITH, 
Autocrat of Nauvoo. 



MORMON1SM 

AGAINST 

ITSELF 



BY 



Saivlukl W. Traum 



What damned error but some sober brow 
Will bless it, and approve it with a text, 
Hiding the grossness zvilh fair ornament? 
— Merchant of Venice. 



CINCINNATI : 

THE STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

1910. 



#$ 



# 



Copyrighted, 1910, 

BY 

The Standard Publishing Co. 



CGU265964 



To 
Ely Vaughn Zollars, A. M. y LL. D. 

President 
Oklahoma Christian University., 

In recognition of his invaluable assistance to me 
during the years of my student life in 

Hiram College 

and with affectionate esteem for him as a 
defender of the faith, 

this volume is respectfully dedicated. 



PREFACE 



PREFACE 



In the winter of 1904- 1905, I made the acquaintance 
of a very estimable man in character, and who was at that 
time a member of and elder in the Reorganized Church 
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which organization 
has its headquarters at Lamoni, Iowa. This elder, Mr. 
M. R. Scott, Jr., of Wirt, Ind., belonged to the Quorum 
of Seventy, and proved to be interested in the discovery 
of the truth at whatever cost. The result of our confer- 
ence led him to make an investigation along some lines 
indicated by me, which investigation led him ultimately 
to a change of church affiliation. The formal step of 
renouncing his former relationship and accepting the new, 
was taken on the sixth day of April, 1905, on which date 
the conference of his former people was in session. 
Although he had not attended this conference, he was 
nevertheless, as in former years, assigned a field of labor, 
which work, because of his change in church relationship, 
he was, of course, disqualified to accept. 

Soon after this, the exact date is not known, but I 
believe it was in the early part of May of that year, Elder 
Columbus Scott, a cousin of M. R. Scott, Jr., came from 
Lamoni, Iowa, presumably to remonstrate with, and, if 
possible, to reclaim, his apostate cousin, or, failing in this, 
to cut him off from the church. The sequel shows that 
he was not able to do the former, and, so far as my in- 
formation goes, he has not attempted in a regular way to 
accomplish the latter. The church regulations, as I am* 



vi MORMQNISM AGAINST ITSELF 

advised, allow an apostate to give his reasons for his 
apostasy ; fearing the results upon the local congregation 
of such a meeting, it is possible that this extreme action 
has been very wisely deferred by the authorities. 

When Columbus Scott came into the neighborhood, 
very naturally I went to hear him preach, and, incident- 
ally, to make his acquaintance. Right early it developed 
that we had some differences of religious views between 
us, and it was finally determined, after a few days, that 
the most desirable way to compose these differences would 
be to give them a public airing. Accordingly a debate 
was arranged, which was to continue over a period of 
eleven days, during which time Elder Columbus Scott 
defended two affirmatives : the first known as the "church 
proposition," in which he affirmed that the Reorganized 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is identical 
with the church of Christ as established by Christ and 
his apostles; the marks of agreement were -'^entity in 
doctrine, ordinances and organization ; and his second 
affirmative declared that the Book of Mormon was of 
divine revelation. I also had one affirmative in which I 
insisted that the church to which I belonged is the church 
of Christ in fact and is identical in doctrine, ordinances 
and organization with the church as established by Christ 
and his apostles. 

The propositions were framed by me. When they 
were presented to Mr. Scott, he returned them to me with 
an amendment, changing the phraseology from "identical 
with" to "in harmony with the Old and New Testament 
Scriptures." I demurred from this amendment and 
stated that the church of Christ is not a compound of 
Judaism, Christianity and paganism, but was the church 
of Christ. I inferred from what I had heard him say in 
his sermons that his church is the church of Christ and 



PREFACE vii 

I wanted him to prove it. With the wisdom of this course 
Mr. Scott finally agreed, and so the original statement 
stood. 

The moderators chosen were D±. Wm. H. Stocker, 
M. D., Wirt, Ind., chairman; Elder S. W. L. Scott, of 
Coldwater, Mich., as moderator for his brother, and the 
late D. H. Bays, of Woodward, Iowa, as my moderator. 
As a discussion, it was not without interest and incident 
locally, and what occurred was probably lacking in giving 
this debate any distinction. It was "revealed" that victory 
rested on our side, or to quote Joseph Smith, Jr., where 
he testifies to what Martin Harris saw, "at least it was to 
me," and the disputants left the scene of word-fighting, 
having satisfied themselves and their friends that their 
work had been well done. It is worthy of note, that in 
the Mormon community where the discussion was held, 
there has been the direct apostasy of another elder who 
had been prominent in the work, the total inactivity of 
another who had formerly worked strenuously for the 
church, while the congregation itself has been in a mori- 
bund condition ever since. 

"As we go to press" the journalist would say, we find 
in the Saints' Herald of Feb. 5, 1908, a letter written from 
Wirt, Ind., the place where the debate was held, this little 
item of news, from an elder who has been sent into that 
community to resuscitate the church. He says : "I am 
now here, preaching in the Saints' Church near Wirt, 
using my charts to illustrate the gospel story. Am so far 
organist, as well as doing all the preaching. Nice, large, 
attentive audiences are in attendance. A fezv Saints here, 
under the leadership of our worthy brother, J. J Boswell, 
are striving to keep the zvork alive under adverse cir- 
cumstances. This is where William Marshall, Richard 
Scott, J. D. Porter and L. F. Daniels were once promt- 



viii MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

nent ministers and missionaries, but left the church. 
Brother Marshall now preaches for the Baptist Church, 
and Richard Scott for the Christian Church, in neighbor- 
hoods adjacent to this branch. But we are grateful that 
we find a few still determined to remain in the work, and 
some outside appear to be not far from the kingdom" (the 
italics are mine). This little bit of news is refreshing in 
contrast with that fulsome eulogy that they are wont to 
bestow upon their successful conduct of a debate. 

This volume is not a history of that debate, but the 
material used in it was for the most part gathered during 
the weeks of preparation for the debate. It is true that 
much has been gathered since, but the major part was 
first used as occasion called it forth in that discussion. 
There is little for which credit is asked for its marked 
originality. I have gleaned from every source available 
such information as will make clear the fraudulency of 
the Mormon claims. Due credit has been given in loco 
for all borrowed material where its authorship has been 
known, while special acknowledgment is here given to 
the suggestions made by the late D. H Bays. During the 
debate, Mr. Bays was for a number of days prostrate 
with sickness, but he had with him books which, supple- 
mented by verbal suggestions, did much to help an inex- 
perienced debater to win this battle with the Mormons. 

This man (Bays) was for many years a member of 
the Reorganized Church, had himself conducted a num- 
ber of discussions for them, and personally stated to me, 
a suggestion which I now firmly believe, that the strength 
of the Mormon position was always in the weakness of 
its opponents. During the discussion, lack of time for- 
bade an examination of all references that he then gave 
me, but the leisure afforded in the two or more years 
intervening has permitted the investigation to be made. 



PREFACE he 

Grateful acknowledgment is likewise made of the signal 
service rendered by M. R. Scott, Jr., the innocent cause 
of the discussion. Especially valuable was his aid along 
the line of furnishing documentary evidence on contro- 
verted topics. 

The Mormons affect to court investigation ; I have 
complied with their wishes. A distinguished American 
general is credited with the statement that "war is hell;" 
we have meant this to be — for Mormonism. I hold that 
their notions are erroneous ; I have tried to refute them. 
I believe that the whole scheme is wicked ; I have sought 
to expose it. A foolish disregard for the menace of Mor- 
monism is suicidal, hence I have tried to meet them at 
their strongest points. It has committed crimes in the 
name of religion and deserves to have its mask removed. 
If, as they claim, Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, he 
should have a hearing; if he is not what he claims to be 
or what is claimed for him, he should be silenced. If 
their system is divine, it deserves acceptance; if it is of 
the earth, earthy, it should be so branded. This I have 
attempted to do. 

The phrase, "the menace of Mormonism," is more 
than mere alliteration — it is a concise statement of a fact. 
Scattered over our nation are not less than twenty-five 
hundred Mormon missionaries who claim to be convert- 
ing to Mormonism as many as twenty thousand of our 
people annually. The daily newspaper is the faithful 
chronicler of their inroads upon our institutions. There 
seems to be a timeliness in the appearance of a work such 
as this purports to be. That there is an abundance of 
material scattered through many volumes, much of it well 
written and useful, we acknowledge, yet we are not aware 
of the existence of the single volume that contains for the 
polemic as much valuable matter as is here presented. 



x MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

This is not an expression of conceit; if there were but 
the one volume, the need for this would not be so ap- 
parent, but the absence of even one justifies the time and 
effort devoted to this. 

A word of caution is not amiss to the man who for 
the first time comes face to face with these men who are 
schooled in the art of public discussion. Do not feel that 
you have done your entire duty when you have called 
a Mormon a polygamist. He may be that, and he may 
not, but he is more. He stands for a disease of which 
polygamy is only the symptom ; back of him there is a 
system that made polygamy possible. Especially will you 
find this caution timely when you come to deal with an 
elder of the Reorganized Church. Understand, he claims 
no relationship to the Utah people and will join you in 
your condemnation of polygamy. The wholesale con- 
demnation of polygamy with nothing else to follow it 
will let you down with these people, and hard, too. 

Another word: Do not delude yourself with the be- 
lief that the Mormons do not know the New Testament. 
They know it, and know it well. Indeed, they are not 
qualified to present Mormonism until they have learned 
what the New Testament has to say upon a given topic. 
When they seek to present the claims of Mormonism they 
always open the way with the New Testament, Their 
work consists in harmonizing the peculiarities of their 
doctrines with the tenets of the New Testament. Your 
opponent will spare no pains to have present with him 
the best help that his institution affords, and this is ex- 
hausted only by the entire resources of his organization. 

This volume is a sincere attempt to give assistance 
in the overthrow of the error. If there is any strength 
in the utterances contained in this book, the reader will 
be able to discover it without having it pointed out. The 



PREFACE xi 

arguments herein presented have this to commend them : 
they have been tried in the heat of battle and have not 
been found wanting. It is too much to hope that the 
last word has been spoken, but that the reader has now 
before him much that he will find invaluable to an under- 
standing of this heresy, may be confidently claimed. 

Samuel W. Traum. 
Richmond, Ind., January, 1909. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page 

Title-page i 

Dedication iii 

Preface V 

Table of Contents xiii 

CHAPTER I. 

Mormonism : What It Is. The charge of persecution — The 
"prophet" compared to Jesus Christ — Truth's inevitable 
conflict — An apology for using offensive appellations — 
Their use justified — Mormonism not a mission to Gentiles 
— A definition of Mormonism — The singular interest in 
the study of the questions involved — The cardinal points 
of Mormonism — "The miracle of Mormonism''' — The 
secret- of its strength — An appeal for a united church.... 21 

CHAPTER II. 

The Book of Mormon : What It Is. The mission of the 
Book of Mormon — Its grand truth — A weak vindication 
— A historical summary — God's provision for having Book 
translated — Testimony of Willard Chase — Trial in Che- 
nango County, N. Y. — The "prophet" proved an im- 
postor — What Whitmer knows of the translation — A di- 
lemma 36 

CHAPTER III. 

The Book of Mormon : Its Witnesses. The testimony of 
the "Three" — The testimony of the "Eight" — A Mormon 
estimate of its value — A terrible alternative — Is this God's 
way? — Are the witnesses to be believed? — "An immense 
conclusion" — Were these witnesses sincere? — Is there 
stronger reason for steadfastness — "Tit for tat" — All 
died outside the Mormon Church — What did Martin Har- 
ris know? — Sidelights on their history — Whitmer's re- 



xiv MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

affirmation — Did Cowdery reaffirm? — Did Harris reaf- 
firm? — An acceptance of the alternative offered \y 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Book of Mormon : Its Translation. A marvelous 
work and a wonder — Conflicting descriptions of the pro- 
ceedings — Was it correct in every particular? — SmitSa 
safeguarded at every point against error — Contrary doc- 
trines produced from the Book of Mormon — Two thou- 
sand changes in the Book of Mormon — A product of 
man's weakness, not of God's wisdom — How far was the 
translator accountable? — Was the printer to blame? — A 
remarkable perversity — Was God a Yankee? — The use of 
the King James translation of the Scriptures — Mormon- 
ism's loss by revision 62 

CHAPTER V. 

The Book of Mormon and Hebrew Prophecy. Prophecy a 
Mormon paradise — The Mormon position stated — Charles 
Thompson's book suppressed by Young — Pratt's position 
— Not Ephraim, but Manasseh — The "stick of Ephraim" 
— A peg that the Mormon can not pull with his teeth — 
Another Mormon stronghold — An examination of it — Is 
Professor Anthon a subject of Hebrew prophecy? — Har- 
ris never said it — The Mormon position indefensible and 
fails for lack of proof 73 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Book of Mormon a Modern Production. The Book of 
Mormon a history — Is it a real history of a real people? — 
The test it must meet if it is true — Alexander Campbell's 
review of the Book — The history of its people as shown 
by its early pages — Where did they make their first stop 
when migrating? — The sea of Irreantum — Many trips to 
the mountain — The trip by sea — Did they land in America ? 
— If so, where is the proof? — Is there a river that empties 
into the Red Sea? — The topography of the country ad- 
jacent the Red Sea — The topography of the country ad- 
jacent the Persian Gulf — What kind of ore did Nephi 
use? — Where did he get it? — The "Author and Proprie- 
tor" of the book shows his ignorance 86 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 



CHAPTER VIT. 

The Ethnology of the Book of Mormon. The problem 
stated — The theory not a new one — Theory of Spanish 
origin — Adopted by Thorowgood — Kingsborough rejected 
by Short — Theory two hundred years older than Smith — 
Kingsborough and Book of Mormon both wrong — The 
weakness of argument by analogy — Short's summary of 
the Book of Mormon — "A pretentious fraud" — Mormon 
"scrap doctors" — Dellenbaugh quoted — A letter from the 
Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution — Palgrave 
the pessimist — A change of front on the question of 
America's origin — Livingston Farrand quoted — The Mor- 
ris K. Jessup expedition — Some insurmountable difficulties 
— Beadle's disposal of the theory of the Jewish descent 
of the American Indian — The conclusion inevitable 99 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Philology of the Book of Mormon. Lamb's linguistic 
argument — "Were the plates Egyptian?" — The languages 
employed by the people of the Book of Mormon — The 
ethnological value of the study of languages — A philo- 
logical necessity — The languages of the Americans prim- 
itive and unique, not similar and derived — One new 
language or dialect annually — Some interesting figures 
for Mormon mathematicians — The conclusion 113 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Book of Mormon and the Religions of Ancient 
America. The antiquity of worship — The glory of the 
Mayan civilization — The religion of the Jaredites — The 
Nephite religion — Were these people Christian or idola- 
trous, which?— The argument from analogy — Evidence 
for sun-worship — What Columbus found — The Book 
again the antiquarian 126 

CHAPTER X. 

The Book of Mormon and Domestic Life in Ancient 
America. The boast of Mormonism — Pratt's bald asser- 
tions — The assertions tested — Iron and steel — Far-fetched 
proof — What do archaeologists have to say? — Testimony 



xvi MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

submitted — Domestic animals — What the Nephites found 
— What the Jaredites found — Are the Book's claims his- 
torical? — Letter from the United States National Museum 
— A word concerning geological epochs — The facts col- 
lated and deductions made — The Book's modernness es- 
tablished 135 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Mormon Priesthood. A modern Ishmaelite — The chal- 
lenge accepted — The Presidency and Priesthood — The 
priesthood distinguished — A series of queries — The un- 
changeableness of God — The antiquity of the gospel — 
The process reversed — The bestowal of the priesthood — 
The Mormon rigmarole — The crudeness of the Mormonic 
conception — The purpose of Christ's priesthood — The 
office is non-transferable — The "Fathers" quoted — Mor- 
mon against Mormon — Whitmer's criticism commended. . 153 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Mormon Priesthood (Continued). A favorite text — 
The purpose of a "call" — An attempted vindication — A 
practical test — Can the Mormon demonstrate his call by 
his teaching? — Another practical test — Do they hear a 
voice? — The Aaronic priesthood "conferred" — Who or- 
dained Smith and Cowdery? — The first apostles called by 
a committee — A poor selection — Rigdon supplanted — A 
"body" without a "head" — The new bond of union — The 
voice of the people higher than the voice of God — The 
Yellowstone conference — The work of another commit- 
tee — A roll-call of the "apostles" — A very correct con- 
clusion 163 

CHAPTER XIII. • 

The Mormon Priesthood (Continued). From Jew to Gen- 
tile — From Gentile to Jew — The Mormons' next move — 
The church rejected — Authority and church organization 
not inseparable — The order of the priesthood — The New 
Testament church and the Mormon nondescript com- 
pared—Where duties of priesthood are defined, according 
to Kelly — The money test — "The counterfeiter is abroad 
Apostles do not by their presence determine the genuine- 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xvii 

ness of the organization — The Mormon cure-all — The 
Mormons and the Baptists — "What is fair for the goose 
is fair for the gander" — The elder the highest office in 
the church 177 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Mormon Priesthood (Concluded). The due process 
of law — Has Kelly the "marks" of a genuine coin? — The 
proposition constructively stated — The purpose of a wit- 
ness — A witness allows of no succession — Was the gospel 
message confirmed? — Apostolic succession of truth versus 
apostolic succession of men — Blair versus Kelly — Mor- 
mon contradicting Mormon — New Testament not suffi- 
cient — The inconsistency explained — Charles Thompson 
with Blair — The insufficiency of Mormon literature — 
Smith and Rigdon, not the Lord, the authors of the 
doctrine — "The counterfeiter is abroad in the land" — A 
final statement 188 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Book of Doctrine and Covenants. A historical note 
— The opening of a dispensation — A poetic description — 
A more prosaic utterance — The opening of a stone box — 
A four-years' probation — Martin Harris' appearance on 
the scene — Joseph's first attempt at prophecy — The lost 
manuscript — Translation in duplicate — The Book of Com- 
mandments — The Book of Doctrine and Covenants — The 
revelations were changed — W'hitmer quoted again — The 
coming of Cowdery — "Thrusting in the sickle" — An in- 
fallible rule for judging of the correctness of a revelation 
— The new policy adopted on account of the lost pages of 
manuscript — Did John die? — A confusion of dates — Find- 
ing a parchment — Baptism of Samuel Smith — W 7 hat Whit- 
mer has to say concerning this question — Smith a poor 
historian 200 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Book of Doctrine and Covenants (Continued). The 
incident of Joseph Knight — An exhibit of all the Lord's 
paraphernalia — An eventful day in April, 1830 — The ques- 
tion of re-baptism — An "exquisite" revelation — Joseph an 



xvlii MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

exception — One revelation that was not changed — "The 
Elect Lady" — Hiram Page and the "seer-stone" — An em- 
bargo on Oliver — The incident of T. B. Marsh — A 
valuable acquisition — The inspired translation — An answer 
by return mail — Westward, ho! — But a "revelation" first. 215 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Book of Doctrine and Covenants (Continued). Smith 
and Rigdon move to Kirtland, Ohio — Zion was the goal — 
The introduction of the office of bishop — A lesson in 
pistisopathy — Prophecy concerning "Zion" and its mis- 
carriage — John Whitmer, historian — Priesthood intro- 
duced — A trip to Independence, Mo. — An organization 
of forces and distribution of offices — While the cat's away 
the mice will play — Sidney's first and second efforts as 
historian — Home again — Prophet's removal to Hiram — ■ 
The publication of the Book of Commandments — A 
uniform of tar and feathers — Whitmer on the claims of 
the prophet and his priesthood 226 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Book of Doctrine and Covenants (Continued). An- 
other trip to Independence — The alleged poisoning of the 
prophet — D. H. Bays' demurrer — The birth of the present 
head of the Reorganized Church — Destruction of the 
printing-press according to Whitmer — Prophet concludes 
to build the "temple" in Kirtland — A message from "Son 
Ahman" — Real-estate boom in Kirtland — Three years' test 
— A promise to "Zion" — Still unfulfilled — Joseph's parable 
— A military expedition, Baurak Ale, leader — Pratt's con- 
firmation of the undertaking — The transformation of the 
prophet from a warrior to an advocate of peace — The 
Fishing River revelation — Endowment first — "Adam's 
Ale" versus "Baurak Ale" — A blasphemous assertion — 
The prophet hopelessly condemned as a fraud 238 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Prophet of God? Joseph no more 
wicked than other prophets of God — Blair's proposed test 
— A great and marvelous work — The coming of the 
cholera scourge prophesied — The series examined and 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xix 

answered — Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel — 
A prophecy with an "if" — "I and my posterity" — Joseph 
the "Ephraimite" — Is Joseph the choice seer of the Book 
of Mormon? — Our conclusion respecting the claims made 
for the prophet — A final word to the reader 253 

CHAPTER XX. 

Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Polygamist? A disputed ques- 
tion among the Mormons themselves — The Brighamite 
position — The Josephite position — A question of fact — 
The church's earliest pronouncement against polygamy — 
Xot two marriage ceremonies — Linn's oversight in the use 
of the Book of Mormon — David Whitmer the first wit- 
ness — That famous copy of the Saints' Herald — Kelly's 
position in Braden-Kelly debate — An accepted statement 
of the Brighamites — "The Elect Lady" ■ or Brigham 
Young — An accepted statement of the Josephites — Whit- 
mer's true position — The "editor's" opinion — A Josephite 
subterfuge — The prophet died by "the visitation of the 
Lord" — Is that number of the True Saints' Herald re- 
liable ? • 267 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Polygamist? (Continued). 
Whitmer again quoted — Kelly's explanation and amend- 
ment — A tissue of lies — Sheen, Marks and Whitmer 
charge the prophet with the crime — Marks never ex- 
onerated the prophet — Joseph Smith III. interviews his 
mother — Was she in position to know? — A mild judgment 
— The son's convictions — A puerile hypothesis — The son's 
estimate of his mother's testimony — The demonstration 
of the method demonstrates the fact — Essential earthly 
relationship — The son's concession — The impending storm 
— The harmless enlargement of the priesthood theory — 
An infamous crown the prophet wears 282 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Polygamist? (Continued). 
Dying testimony versus living silence — The direct tes- 
timony — Certificate of Lovina Walker — A question of 
unsupported testimony — Affidavit of Emily D. P. Young — 



xx MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

An explanation of Mrs. Smith-Bidamon's silence — Oath 
of Lucy Walker — Dr. Wyl quoted — United testimony of 
bride and officiating minister — Is it possible that the pur- 
ported interview is fictitious? — Joseph III. quotes Samuel 
Smucker — Smucker's real opinion in the matter — The 
demonstrated weakness of the Josephites' defense — The 
testimony of Ebenezer Robinson and wife — A second 
affidavit — Hyrum Smith the evangelist of the pernicious 
doctrine — Following the "directions" — Willard Smith's 
conundrum answered 295 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Polygamist? (Concluded). 
Mercy R. Thompson's letter — A poetic justice — Joseph F. 
Smith's accusation — Was the prophet the author of the 
"revelation" ? — One fraud descending from another fraud 
— The Brighamite side of the story — The Josephites' re- 
buttal — The testimony summarized — Testimony of David 
Fullmer — Extract of Thomas Grover's letter — Affidavit of 
Leonard Soby — D. H. Bays' confirmation of the correct- 
ness of Gurley's interview — The incident of the Nauvoo 
Expositor — The historian quoted — The characteristic 
course of the Saints — SmltYs description of the character 
of Nauvoo — A just conclusion — The formidable foes — 
The present status of polygamy — The Reed Smoot inves- 
tigation — How the manifesto can be violated — An enjoy- 
ment of "Abrahamic blessings" — The one man of the 
nineteenth century so vile was this pseudo-prophet 306 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

i. General Joseph Smith — Autocrat of Nauvoo — Frontispiece. 

2. Fac-simile of Title-page of Book of Mormon 36 

3. Smith's "Caractors." 82 

4. Orson Pratt 135 

5. Fac-simile Statistical Report Blank 182 

6. Sidney Rigdon 222 

7. President Joseph Smith '267 

8. Affidavit Lucy Walker Smith 298 



Mormonism Against Itself 



CHAPTER I. 
Mormonism : What It Is. 

We are now to begin an examination into the claims 
made for the Book of Mormon, for Joseph Smith, Jr., 
as a prophet of God, and for the system which is the joint 
product of the "prophet" and his books. We say we 
are now to begin such an investigation, whereas it is 
more nearly correct to say that we are now to record 
the results of an investigation zvhich we have already 
made. Frankness compels the admission that the results 
of our inquiry are not flattering to either the 4 'prophet" 
or his literature. We are aware that adherents to the 
Mormon faith frequently testify that God has revealed 
to them his approval of the "seer," and has shown them 
that the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and 
Covenants are of divine origin ; but in all candor we 
avow that he has never seen fit to make such a "revela- 
tion" to us. In the absence of like evidence, we with- 
hold our belief, exonerating the Lord of all fault in the 
delinquency. 

In making this contribution to anti-Mormon litera- 
ture, we realize that we are laying ourselves liable to 
the charge of "persecuting the Saints, " and of showing 
ourselves akin to Saul of Tarsus in the days of his bit- 
terness against the people of God ; but this liability to 
such criticism we hold to be inevitable, when attacking a 



22 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

controverted point in a theological system, and plead 
this, to condone our offense, that we attack this mon- 
strous heresy in all good conscience, pledging ourselves 
that, when we are shown to be wrong, to just as ardently 
defend the "faith" we now seek to overthrow. If to be 
able to say what we are now to say, that for our present 
position we have given up home and kindred for the 
gospel's sake, and that this is an adequate proof of sin- 
cerity in the matter, then the "Saints" can not eye with 
suspicion the motives that prompt to our present en- 
deavor. 

When at a later time we come to look upon this 
"prophet" and his works, and shall be impelled in the 
interest of truth to comment unfavorably upon his vast 
pretensions, it shall be done in the full consciousness that 
he will at once be compared to Jesus Christ. He has 
already, by them, been credited with having done more 
(save Jesus only) for the salvation of men in this world, 
than any other man that ever lived in it. 1 We shall 
expect to learn that the orthodox world was" not ready 
to accept Jesus Christ as a prophet, notwithstanding his 
just claims to honor as the Son of God. Blasphemously 
shall it be said that the same is true of Joseph Smith, Jr. 
We shall confidently look for a defense along the line 
that. Christ was rejected because he was misunderstood, 
and for the same reason has the world held aloof from 
Joseph Smith, Jr. It will be asserted that men could net 
see the true character of Jesus Christ because of a native 
prejudice that beclouded the vision, and which was- deep- 
ened by the falsehoods and foul aspersions heaped upon 
him ; that slander and calumny ran ahead to cast the 
thorns upon his pathway, and that when he died it was 
a venomous spite that nailed him to the cross. So shall 

^'Doctrine and Covenants," Sec. cxiii. 



MORMONISM: WHAT IT IS 23. 

it be held that a blind, perverse and crooked generation 
could not behold in Joseph Smith, Jr., the lineaments of 
a prophet of God. 

But all this need not deter us from our course, for 
such claims have boastful pretenders ever made. Our 
study of the subjects to be presented in this volume has 
quite inured us against Mormon methods. Our deter- 
mination is to put to the test their every claim. Acrimo- 
nious assaults, such as they make upon the word of God, 
need not move us. If there is any prophet of God who,, 
either in office or out of it, stands in need of defense, let 
him make it who holds a brief for that purpose; but let 
us know once for all that the malicious attacks which 
Mormons make upon the Book and men of God, will not 
establish for them a single pretended "revelation." 

We shall further acknowledge with them that truth 
has never had an easy course to travel, but we beg to 
assure them that this sentiment is quite as strongly oper- 
ative against them as for them. If it should transpire 
that they have not the truth, despite their claims, then 
manifestly they are in the wrong when they thrust their 
institution forward as the true church of Jesus Christ, 
and substitute their pretended revelation ' for the ex- 
pressed will of God, as set forth in the volume of the 
Book. They are not sparing in their wholesale con- 
demnation of every system of religious truth not their 
own, and, according to their preaching, the issue of 
rejecting their system is damnation. But with all their 
pompous assertions we do not believe them, and return 
from the investigation of them fully satisfied that they 
are false from the day of their inception to the present 
time. We have not "shied off" when confronted by any 
phase of Mormonism, and have not shrunk from giving 
painstaking attention to the most intricate of their prob- 



24 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

lems and their proofs. Hence we claim a right to be 
heard, and an equal claim is made that we speak 
advisedly when we characterize the whole thing as a 
clumsy and stupid fraud. 

There appears to be some antipathy to the use of the 
word "Mormon," when applied to individuals ; or "Mor- 
monism," when applied to their system of religion; or 
"Mormon Church," when used in a manner descriptive 
of their organization. Thifs, while forbidding the use 
of these terms, they are not agreed among themselves 
as to a term universally acceptable. They were first 
called, or, rather, they first called themselves, the 
"Church of Christ ;" that title appearing upon the title- 
page of the Book of Commandments as late as 1833. 
Before they left Kirtland, Whitmer says, they were 
called "The Church of Latter-day Saints," the name of 
Christ having been elided. Subsequently this was ex- 
panded to read, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- 
day Saints," which title the Utah faction wears, while 
the "Josephites," whose headquarters are in Lamoni, 
Iowa, use the imposing title, "Reorganized Church of 
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," using eighteen dif- 
ferent letters of the twenty-six in the alphabet. When, 
therefore, we use the above objectionable terms, it is 
through no slanderous or contemptuous motive, but 
solely for the absence of any one other term that will be 
so inclusive. We trust that they as Mormons will yield 
gracefully to this necessity imposed upon us, especially 
since their own historian thus writes : "And this is Mor- 
monism ! A grand universal scheme of salvation! A 
stupendous structure of divine purposes and divine 
beneficence I" 1 

The above citation from Tullidge, the historian of 

^ullidge's "Life of the Prophet," p. 133. 



MORMONISM: WHAT IT IS 25, 

the church, at once answers for a Mormon definition of 
Mormonism, and justifies us in the use of the appella- 
tion. As "a universal scheme of salvation," its claim is 
unqualifiedly false, and every Mormon use of the 
"scheme" utterly belies the above description of it. The 
gospel of the Book of Mormon is not coextensive with 
the gospel of the New Testament. Lineage with Abra- 
ham in the New Testament is that we are children by 
faith ; that is, like faith determines relationship ; with the 
Mormon it is blood. The defense that is made for the 
Book of Mormon, as shown by its preface, is that it is 
"written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the 
house of Israel." It says "also to the Jew and Gentile," 
in the very next clause ; but within its lids there is no 
command that commissions any one to go to the Gentiles, 
but it is expressly set for the "gathering of the Jews." 
It records no Gentile church history, for the simple 
reason that if the Lamanites are the American Indians, 
and these are a "remnant of the house of Israel," and 
until Columbian times there were no Gentiles on the con- 
tinent, then there is not a vestige of hope for any Gentile 
based upon any command or any promise in the Book of 
Mormon. The mission of the book is to gather up the 
Jews and present them as "an offering unto the Lord." 
Mormon usage confirms this belief. There is no more 
reprehensible term that they can use than "Gentilish," 
and Joseph Smith, Jr., could only be called of God 
because he was an "Ephraimite." In a letter written by 
"Father" Gurley to "Brother Sheen," an anti-polyga- 
mous Mormon, just before the "reorganization," the 
question was asked: "Are we the blood of Ephraim? If 
we are, let us show our blood by our works." 1 If this 
means anything, it means that these men are Jews of the 

^ullidge's "Life of the Prophet," p. 605. 



26 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

tribe of Ephraim, not by faith, but by blood, and it makes 
the gospel plan of salvation as shown by the Book of 
Mormon to consist of a flesh-and-blood basis of accept- 
ance. To accept Mormonism is evidence of Jewish 
blood, and to reject it is to be stigmatized as Gentile, and 
absolutely without salvation. The preposterous assertion 
that this is "a grand universal scheme of salvation" is 
ludicrously absurd in the light of Mormon history and 
usage. 

A Mormon may then be defined as one who holds to 
the inspiration of the Book of Mormon and to the divin- 
ity of the mission of Joseph Smith, Jr., as a prophet of 
God. The aggregate of such believers we shall style the 
'"Mormon Church," and the full development of that 
system of religion, which is shown by its theory and 
practice to be the product of this man and his books, we 
shall call "Mormonism." So understood and so ex- 
plained, the use of these appellations should not entirely 
condemn this volume in the sight of such believers as 
above described, into whose hands this book may fall. 
As to the spirit in which we shall prosecute our work, 
it must necessarily be controversial. However, we must 
t>e fair. It is no advance in the interests of truth to set 
up a "man of straw," and then to proceed to his demoli- 
tion, finding thereby just grounds for applauding our- 
selves in the signal victory we may have gained. Our plan 
is to always state a proposition as its friends will defend 
it, and in the exact language they employ, proceeding 
from thence to an examination into their alleged proofs, 
following with a conclusion based upon these combined 
premises. Where we find a controverted question, upon 
which the Mormons have themselves failed to agree, our 
attempt shall be to set before the reader both sides of 
the controversy, permitting him to reach his own con- 



MORMONISM: WHAT IT IS 27 

elusion, except in instances where in our judgment we 
may lend assistance. Of the exercise of this privilege 
we shall be the sole judge, being alone answerable for 
any error it may contain. From this plan and this pur- 
pose no well-meaning person can dissent. We do not 
hope to gain anything by asking the "Saints" to lay aside 
all bias and prejudice; this we doubt their ability to do. 
If we succeed in convincing them, it must be in spite 
of their preconceived notions. Experience has demon- 
strated that this task is not altogether a hopeless one. 

We can scarcely imagine the type of mind that will 
not find its interest excited by a careful study of Mor- 
monism. Its lowly origin ; its singular proselyting 
power; its marvelous dissemination, especially during 
the lifetime of its "prophet;" its almost unparalleled 
comedy and tragedy as exhibited by the experiences of 
the people who gave it credence ; its steadfast allegiance 
of many, at the price of reproach and degradation, fre- 
quently at the expense of misery almost beyond human 
endurance ; its apostasies by an almost equal number, 
and especially by those who were best acquainted with 
its origin and its sanctions — all these are elements that 
combine to invite the attention of all who are of an 
investigating turn of mind. There is no crime in the 
catalogue of misdemeanors with which the "Saints" have 
not be charged. Of some of these they were innocent, 
and, being able to establish their innocency, have found 
their cause strengthened by malicious attacks. They 
have been met by opponents who, because they knew but 
little of the system, have made such a poor attack that 
it has redounded to the upholding of the system. They 
have ever delighted in getting hold of a person ill 
qualified to meet their attacks, and by the weakness 
of the defense of their opponents, their own faith 



28 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

has been confirmed. They have been accused 01 lying 
in the interests of their priesthood, and even Mormon 
has fought Mormon, until it is difficult to determine 
upon the acceptance of their testimony. Incrimination 
and recrimination have ever been favorite methods of 
Mormons and anti-Mormons alike. They have fallen 
out among themselves, and so freely has the lie been 
passed that there is not left one prominent man among 
them whose word is universally received. Now, in the 
midst of all this chaos of inconsistencies, we are expected 
to seek out that immutable and constant quantity, so pre- 
cious and yet so elusive, Truth. 

For many people, if not for most, the kingdom of 
Mormonism is bounded on the north by polygamy ; on 
the east, by the Adam-God theory ; on the south, by the 
doctrine of blood atonement; and, on the west, by the 
Mountain Meadow massacre. But these lines are purely 
artificial, not to say imaginary. Not that the Mormons 
of the Salt Lake territory do not teach such doctrines, 
or are guiltless of the crimes preferred, but these are not 
the marks of Mormonism. Every one of these heresies 
and crimes may be denied, and the "Josephite" denies 
them every one, yet he is still a Mormon. Hence, as he 
is within the confines of Mormonism, we are compelled 
to draw our lines other than here noted. A more proper 
definition of the boundary lines would show that the 
domain of the Mormon is bounded on the north by the 
Book of Mormon; on the east, by the prophetship of 
Joseph Smith, Jr. ; on the south, by the doctrine of con- 
tinuous revelation, as shown in the Book of Doctrine and 
Covenants ; and, on the west, by the Aaronic and Mel- 
chizedek priesthoods. Having these four, we have every 
essential that goes to make up Mormonism, and which 
are indeed the distinguishing marks of the cult. Con- 



MORMONISM: WHAT IT IS 29 

sequently, the intelligent investigation of the system 
must, embrace a consideration of the four following 
questions : 

1. Is the Book of Mormon of divine inspiration? 

2. Is the doctrine of continuous revelation true? 

3. Is the Mormon priesthood established by divine 
authority ? 

4. Is Joseph Smith, Jr., a prophet of God? 

It is true that there are subsidiary questions that 
arise, such as, for instance, Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a 
polygamist? But all such are subordinate to one or the 
other of these four leading questions. This, then, is the 
ground of our affirmation that these four questions are 
the very vitals of the Mormon faith. However much 
they may fight each other, and however heretical may be 
their utterances on great moral topics, holding to the 
four above-noted doctrines they are Mormons— essen- 
tially so. 

William Alexander Linn, in his "Story of the Mor- 
mons," gives us, in his initial chapter of that most ex- 
cellent book, a discussion of the "Facility of Human 
Belief." His observations are correct, bearing on the 
history of other delusions that may have been accepted 
by other people ; but when he seeks to account for what 
he calls the "Miracle of Mormonism" — that is, that it 
should have met with such wide acceptance in such a 
land as ours — his answer is, in our estimation, insuffi- 
cient, and that, too, because he never gets within speak- 
ing distance of the real strength of these people. The 
susceptibility of certain people, who are in other depart- 
ments of life so sane, to be led off by vagaries of every 
description, of which Mormonism is one, the position he 
takes, is not a serious answer to this problem. We have 
been at some pains to inquire into the foundations of 



30. M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Mormonism, and we here register our profound convic- 
tion that the strength of Mormonism is, has been, and 
will continue to be, till conditions materially change, the 
divided state of Christendom. A conclusion so important 
as this deserves at our hand some justification. The 
strength of Mormonism has always been the weakness 
of its opposition, and the weakness of Protestantism is 
its divisions. 

Quite early in the religious experience of Joseph 
Smith, Jr., so he tells us in his history, he went into the 
woods to pray. This prayer, he claims, was incited by a 
desire to know just what course to take to become a 
Christian. The numerous forms of religious belief in his 
own community had tended to the confusion of his mind. 
Unsophisticated as he was, he could not tell which of all 
these sects to join. Accordingly he inquired of the Lord, 
and was told to join none of them, as they were all wrong, 
''having a form of godliness, but denying the power 
thereof." Just now we are not concerned with the 
alleged fact that an angel actually appeared to him, this 
can be taken up at a later time ; but what we must observe 
is this, that when this boy came forward with his story, 
no one of the "sects" could set him right. The merest 
tyro in religious history must know that this is true. Each 
was busy with its own tenets, and almost every form of 
religious debate was the order of the day. In recording 
this, we are not compelled to take sides with the dis- 
putants ; we simply chronicle the condition then prevail- 
ing. Households were divided, part belonging to one 
faith and part to another. A state religion was exotic to 
American soil, and did not flourish, nor could it com- 
mand obedience to its authority. Dissenters of every 
kind found a freedom in the New World which they 
could not enjoy on the shores of the Old. Rivalry was 



MORMONISM: WHAT IT IS 3 r 

keen and differences were magnified and opinions became 
vested with the authority of essentials, and were made 
tests of fellowship. It was an age when religious views 
were very fluctuating, and it was not uncommon for 
votaries of one religion to forsake one communion and 
flee to another, each time making the rules of the new 
fellowship matters of conscience. The Book of Mormon 
itself partakes of the very atmosphere of the place where 
it was brought into existence. It aims to settle every 
disputed question. The question of baptism, its mode, 
action and design ; the "call" to the ministry, and the 
authority with which it is endowed; the apostasies of the 
Catholic Church, and the precise form they took — these 
and other questions vexed the mind of that rural folk, 
that had but little opportunity for reading, and that 
found its mental exercise in bringing mind in touch with 
mind. 

Now, these were the conditions into which young 
Smith came with his startling announcement that Heaven 
had rejected all the "sects," and for the reason that they 
were all wrong ; and his followers later gave a semblance 
to his message when, in answer to the question what to 
do to be saved, they could use the exact words of the 
New Testament. They baptized people, and when ques- 
tioned as to their course, said it was "for the remission 
of sins," in the precise words of Acts 2 : 38. And such 
was their usual course of procedure that, when they 
appeared preaching their new doctrines, they could pri- 
marily make their appeal to the New Testament. And 
what emphasizes the thought is, that no "sect," as Smith 
called them, preached anything like it. People saw that 
these men made their appeal to the New Testament, and 
naturally inferred that if the Mormons are right on this 
and the "sects are wrong," why may they not be right in 



2 2 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

other matters? This, then, opened the way for their 
course in apologetics, in harmonizing the New Testament 
and the Book of Mormon. Their success in this field has 
always been in direct ratio with the weakness of the 
opposition. 

John Hyde throws a sidelight on their methods and 
results when he says: 

Very little attention was paid to the subject by conservators 
of religious truth. Despised, it was neglected ; and because it 
was neglected, it continued to grow. With little or no contra- 
diction, and the little that was made, readily silenced by these 
men, they made themselves believed. All that was known of 
Mormonism was known from their own statements ; positively 
thinking it something holier, purer and truer, it was embraced 
by hundreds. To fervently embrace a delusion, is to more sin- 
cerely believe it. 1 

What Hyde shows was true in England was dupli- 
cated in practically every instance where the Mormon 
first appeared. Hyde says that these men "readily 
silenced all contradiction," but why? The Mormon will 
say it was because these men had the truth. And he is 
right. The strength of the Mormon was his knowledge 
of the New Testament. All scholasticism that had draped 
itself about the Book, he removed with ruthless hand. 
And it was this element of truth borrowed from the New 
Testament that not alone added plausibility to his mon- 
strous pretensions in other things, but clothed him with a 
new power which routed and confused his opponents 
who could speak of salvation only in the terms of a six- 
teenth-century theology. And neither then nor now can 
any man hope to combat these people, if he has to bolster 
up his religion either in its theory or practice with some 
ecclesiastical anachronism, whose highest authority is 



a Hyde's "Mormonism," p. 16, 



MORMONISM: WHAT IT IS 33 

that some scholastic opinion is its sanction. And the fact 
that the people fell in with Mormonism was not a " facil- 
ity of human belief," and a "susceptibility to religious 
credulity," but the exercise of the plainest common sense. 
In other words, the Mormons were able to whip "the 
conservators of religious truth" with the New Testament 
alone, "contradictions were readily silenced by these 
men," and then, because the people could see the con- 
fusion on the one hand and the absolute mastery on the 
other, confidence was inspired in the victorious side, after 
which, leaving the New Testament, these recent victors 
could bring in all of Mormonism, the Book of Mormon, 
the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and Joseph Smith 
as the prophet, and the victory was complete. 

It is because some critics of the Mormons have failed 
to see this that they have been led to attack the Mormons 
with arguments that are not well founded. The Rev. 
M. T. Lamb, in his work called "The Mormons and 
Their Bible," falls into such an error. He says : "The 
Mormons make more of baptism than we do. To us 
baptism is simply an outward symbol of an inward work 
wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and to be sub- 
mitted once for all." 1 Without seeking to espouse the 
cause of the Mormon in this instance, it is enough to say 
that Mr. Lamb would find it a difficult matter to meet a 
well-informed Mormon before an audience of intelligent 
people, and there establish that his version of the mean- 
ing of th'e ordinance of baptism has been made clearer 
by the phraseology he uses, especially if the terms of the 
discussion limited the disputants to New Testament lan- 
guage. Later on, the Mormon will appear to a disadvan- 
tage when he expands the meaning of baptism to include 
the proxy baptisms practiced by the church, but as to the 

'Lamb's "The Mormons and Their Bible," p. 16. 



34 MORMONISM -AGAINST ITSELF 

meaning attached to the ordinance as inducting the be- 
liever into the "body of Christ/' there can be no question 
that, in the presence of any audience, whether preached 
by Mormon or Gentile, the New Testament position is 
indisputably correct, and will carry zvith it all the power 
that any truth is calculated ' - convey. Which brings us 
back to our former observation, that the strength of 
Mormonism is the weakness of the attack made against 
it. 

In further assuring ourselves of the correctness of 
the position taken relative to the strength of Mormon- 
ism, we may profitably revert to what we have said 
above, that Mormonism is that system of religion based 
upon the claim that the Book of Mormon is divine and 
that Joseph Smith, Jr., is a prophet of God; but we add 
that its strength is something that is extraneous to these 
tzvo elements. Although these two doctrines are vital to 
the system, yet they are not at first broached. The peri- 
patetic elders who scour the country, and who stop at 
your door and mine, will present tracts in which New 
Testament teaching abounds, and from which has care- 
fully been excluded that which distinguishes Mormon- 
ism. And it follows from all that has been said that, 
should these itinerants be confronted with a united 
Christendom, not a comity of churches, nor yet divided 
churches, but a united church, their endeavors would be 
forestalled. But, as it is, they find a community in which 
there are organizations deriving their professed author- 
ity from the same book, yet teaching, as the Mormon 
claims, "for doctrine the commandments of men," doc- 
trines that are diametrically opposite to each other, and 
when he affirms that they can not all be right, since truth 
is not discordant, he has created a presumption that his 
opinion is correct, with none able to gainsay the position. 



MORMONISM: WHAT IT IS 35 

And it will forever militate against the efficiency of the 
church of Christ, as she seeks to expel heresy in any 
form, so long as she refuses to square herself with the 
church of the New Testament. So long as the prayer of 
Christ remains unfulfilled, that "they all may be one, as 
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they all may 
be one in us : that the world may believe that thou didst 
send me" that long will not alone denominationalism be 
sin, but the church will be open to the attacks of impos- 
tors of every kind. Hence, the Mormon problem is edu- 
cational. The antidote for this poisonous growth is 
truth. From the religious standpoint we shall attempt 
to refute its error, and expose its wickedness, leaving to 
the strong arm of the State the punishment of its crimes. 



36 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER II. 
The Book of Mormon : What It Is. 

In the preceding chapter an outline was presented of 
the four essential features of Mormonism, a knowledge 
of which, we asserted, is indispensable to an understand- 
ing of the Mormon system. While it matters little as 
to which item we first attack, for it is vulnerable at every 
point, it will in some ways seem more fitting to begin 
with the Book of Mormon. The extraordinary claims 
made for this book are such that any sane man, who has 
given the question any serious thought, will find not the 
slightest difficulty in concluding that either the book is 
of divine origin, and therefore true, or else it is a trans- 
parent and deliberate fraud, given for no other purpose 
than to deceive. 

Much has been written of its origin and purpose, and 
quite generally have people formed some kind of an esti- 
mate of its value; but for the reader who is not familiar 
with its inception, and uninstructed regarding the claims 
made for it by its friends, a few introductory words are 
due. As before expressed, we hold ourselves in honor 
bound to state every proposition in the exact language of 
its defenders, but hold ourselves at liberty to examine 
the proofs .advanced in support of it, and in the light of 
that examination to declare our belief or disbelief, as the 
testimony warrants. -Thus shall we guard against mis- 
representing the book by not even representing it our- 
selves. 

Isaac M. Smith, an elder of the Reorganized Church 
of. Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, published in 1898 



THE 



BOOK OF MOBMON 



AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF MOR- 
MON, UPON PLATES TAKEN FROM 
THE PLATES OF NEPHI. 



Wherefore f ia an abridgment of the Record of the People of Nepi.i • and also ..) 
roe l.am a r.ite> written to ihf Lsmaiiites, which area remnant of the Hoasc of 
i-r-f! a-.o a : so to Jew Mid Gentile written b* «a; of commandment, and at*o 
bv th*« sp>nf if Pf.ipjir-fv ;, n .l i.r' Ui-.vU'tvir,, \\'nnvn> an* sealed tip and hirf 
u'f. unto the Lord, mat they miffht iwr be destroyed , to ccme forth by the trifl 
and power of Goo unto me interpretation thereof. «t-aleJ by the hand of Moro- 
ni and bid up unto the Lord, tocome forth in doe time by the wa> of Gentile ; 
if., interpretation thereof by the- gift of Goo ; an abridgment taken frooi lue 
Book < i Ether, 

Also, which is a Record of the People of Sired, which were scattered at the time 
Lord confounded the language of the people when tbey nere building a^ 
i>r to ?<-( to Heaven which ia to shew unto trie remnant of the H erase, of 
•t '. ."-r „-Kt tiu')c>» the Lord bath done ior then fatheia and tbat th t v may 
fiw the covenant i»f the Lord, thut the* are not cam off forever; an.i also to 
,• c..nvin"tn»of the Jew and Gentilrt that Jesos \* the Christ, the Etf.hsac 
no, in ,nife»ong Himself unto all nations. And now if there be fault, ii b>- the 
(iiisuke of men, wherefore condemn not the things of Goo, that ye may- be 
fo.«nd spotless at the judgment seat of Christ, 




BY JOSEPH SMITH, JI7XIOR, 

AUTHOR A ND PROPRIETOR.! 



PALMYRA: 

PRINTED BY K- B..GRANDIN, TOR THE AUTHOR. 

1830. 



i .. iiLLU Li'_Jlil'_tiLVIi^ l_ilii^X.i:i_'iJi^ or^iilKAJi^ 



THE BOOK OF MORMON 37 

a book of 112 pages under the title, 'The Book of Mor- 
mon Vindicated: Scriptural Evidences of the Divine 
Authenticity of the Book of Mormon." The author's 
standing in his church, and the subject-matter of his 
work, combine to make desirable copious extracts from 
this volume. In his chapter, "The Mission of the Book 
of Mormon," he says : 

The book purports to be an inspired record, and to have been 
brought forward and translated by direct inspiration of God. 
Not only does it claim inspiration, but its grand object, the main 
cause of its being sprung upon the world at this time, is to estab- 
lish a truth ; a truth of such great importance to the human 
family (and so destructive of the devil's work upon the earth), 
as to make its promulgators the special objects of vile slander, 
intolerant persecution, and unrelenting hatred, in all ages of the 
world. 

Before telling you what particular truth I have reference to, 
I shall tell you, in as few words as possible, what the Book of 
Mormon is. The main body of the work is a history of a colony 
of Israelites who came out of Jerusalem about six hundred years 
before the coming of Christ. The leader's name was Lehi, a 
descendant of Joseph, who was sold into Egypt. After leaving 
Jerusalem, the colony divided. Those who were wicked and 
rebellious followed Laman, the oldest son of Lehi, and the right- 
eous followed Nephi, one of his younger sons; hence they were 
called Lamanites and Nephites. The Lamanites became idola- 
trous and the Nephites worshiped the God of Israel. 

The Book of Mormon gives the history of this people, their 
wars and their contentions, their righteousness and their wicked- 
ness, their prosperity and their adversity, with the teachings of 
their prophets and leaders, down to four hundred years after 
Christ, making a consecutive history of them for one thousand 
years. It tells us that Christ came to this continent after his 
resurrection, showed himself to the people, preached the gospel 
to them, and organized a church among them ; that the church 
he organized here, the gospel he preached here, the ordinances he 
taught and practiced here, were the same as the church he organ- 
ized, the gospel he preached, and the ordinances he taught and 
practiced, on the eastern continent, at Jerusalem. 



38 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

In addition to the Israelite colony, the book gives an account 
of another people who came from the Tower of Babel at the 
time the Lord confounded the language of the people, and scat- 
tered them "upon all the face of the earth." This people were 
led by Jared and his brother, and were called the Jaredites. 
They came to this continent under the direction of the Lord, 
rose to be a powerful people, were wonderfully blessed, both 
spiritually and temporally, turned from the Lord in their pros- 
perity, and, when fully ripened in their iniquity, were destroyed 
from off the land, just before the landing of the Israelite 
colony. 1 

Thus allowing Mormon authority to supply the data, 
and using the commonly accepted date of the dispersion, 
2133 B. C, it is apparent that we have a consecutive 
history of the inhabitants of this continent from that 
date to 420 A. D., or approximately for a period of 2,553 
years. It will be well to retain these dates in mind, as at 
a subsequent time we shall refer to them again. While 
passing we may observe that, accordjng to this author, 
we have a real history of a real people, as also do we 
note that when the second colony arrived it found the 
country depopulated, the Jaredites being destroyed just 
before the landing of the Israelite colony. As a people, 
the Nephites were given to keeping records, and of these 
this same author says : 

Some four hundred years after the coming of Christ, Moroni, 
the last of the Nephite prophets, being directed of the Lord, took 
these records and hid them in the earth, having been promised of 
the Lord that they should be brought forth in the last days and 
translated by the gift and power of God. This promise, we be- 
lieve, has been fulfilled in the present century. 2 

The "plates" above referred to are those from which 
the Book of Mormon is said to have been translated, and 
which in due time were given over to the young man, 



14 'Book of Mormon Vindicated," pp. 2, 3. "*Ibid, p. 



THE BOOK OF MORMON 39 

Joseph Smith, Jr. They were delivered into his hands in 
1827, together with an instrument usually styled the 
"Urim and Thummim," by means of which Smith was 
able to translate them. The translation was completed 
in 1829, and in 1830 the publication "came forth." And 
the "grand truth" which this book was to make known, 
as shown by its preface, was that "Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of the living God." Such is the book, and such 
its mission as declared by its friends. And with the 
above sentiment agrees every Mormon writer of repute. 
Parley Pratt, in his "Voice of Warning," a book of 
which it is said that it "has proved to be one of the best 
means for giving instruction upon the dealings of God 
with nations, and upon the gospel of Jesus Christ, that 
has ever been published," has added these very interest- 
ing particulars : 

These records were engraved on plates which had the appear- 
ance of gold. Each plate was not far from seven by eight inches 
in width and length, being not quite as thick as common tin. 
They were filled on both sides with engravings, in Reformed 
Egyptian characters, and bound together in a volume as the 
leaves of a book, and fastened at the edges with rings running 
through the whole. The volume was something near six inches 
in thickness, a part of which was sealed. The characters or 
letters upon the unsealed part were small and beautifully en- 
graved. 1 

The calmness of these authors as they thus assure us 
of the verity of these alleged facts, which they present in 
this summary and omnibus manner, is equaled only by 
their audacity in telling so much of the story as they are 
able to weave into their seamless robe. That by equally 
weighty Mormon authority discrepancies can be discov- 
ered in the mere narration of these incidents, does not 
disturb the composure and serenity of their minds. They 

1 "Voice of Warning,** Lamoni edition, p. 75. 



4 o M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

dextrously sweep aside many pertinent facts which do 
not admit of their being used by them. And it is proper 
to say that any vindication of the book, which either con- 
sciously or unconsciously discards discordant facts from 
equally reliable sources, is at best a lame effort, is indeed 
no vindication at all. 

By the assistance rendered by Tullidge, the church 
historian, we may be able to work in some minor details 
which are yet important enough to be considered. Hav- 
ing secured the "plates" from the angel, Smith allowed 
the information to leak out that they were in his posses- 
sion, and the excitement (which, by the way, appears to 
exist alone in the mind of Smith) incident to it caused 
all manner of tales to become current concerning the 
Smith family — tales which, to use Joseph's hyperbole, "if 
I were to relate a thousandth part of them, it would fill 
volumes." Slander gave way to "persecution," and this 
ultimately became so intolerable as to create the necessity 
for Smith to move from New York to Pennsylvania. 
The timely assistance of one Martin Harris, who made 
him a loan (?) of fifty dollars, enabled the coming 
"prophet" to make his removal to the home of Mrs. 
Smith's father. Joseph now commenced copying some 
of the characters of the plates, and, by the aid of the 
"Urim and Thummim," translated a few of them. This 
was in the interim between December, 1827, and Febru- 
ary, 1828. In the latter month, Martin Harris came to 
Smith, secured some of the "caractors" which Smith had 
copied, and. took them to Professor Anthon, of New 
York City. This part of the narrative we shall consider 
more at length in its proper place. Harris returned to 
Smith on Apr. 12, 1828, and engaged as Smith's amanu- 
ensis. The work of "translating" continued till they had 
at least 116 pages of manuscript, which Harris was 



THE BOOK OF MORMON 41 

allowed to take home with him. This never got back 
into Smith's hands. The direct result of this loss was 
that the work of translating ceased for well-nigh a year, 
and during this interval of time Joseph, so his historian 
says, was engaged in the very laudable enterprise of 
"providing sustenance for his family." In April of 1829 
Oliver Cowdery makes his appearance, the two begin the 
translation of the book in earnest, and, as we said, the 
book was published in 1830. 

Inasmuch as the purpose of this volume is purely 
doctrinal, we can allow ourselves space for historical 
matters just barely sufficient for keeping the thread of 
the narrative intact. Through the omission of much his- 
toric detail, the reader will feel constrained to supple- 
ment his study by works of purely historical kind, than 
which none will more admirably meet his need than 
Linn's "Story of the Mormons." That author claims to 
have made a search for facts, not moral deductions, 
except as they presented themselves in the course of 
his story. We are seeking moral deductions after having 
sought the facts, and shall use only so much of the story 
as perspicuity demands. With this statement we are 
ready to enter upon our study proper. 

The careful reader has not failed to note, allowing 
this array of alleged facts to stand, that for the transla- 
tion of the "plates" a special provision had been made in 
what is familiarly called the "Urim and Thummim." 
Mother Smith describes this very instrument as "two 
smooth, three-cornered diamonds, and the glasses were 
set in silver bows that were connected with each other 
in much the same way as old-fashioned spectacles." She 
claims to have seen them, Joseph himself showing them 
to her. Hence, if her testimony is to be accredited, this 
is what they looked like, unless Joseph practiced decep- 



42 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

tion upon her. The "plates" were engraved in "Re- 
formed Egyptian," a language peculiar to the people of 
the Book of Mormon, and intelligible to others only 
through the "Urim and Thummim." The Lord's care 
for this instrument was second only to his care for the 
"plates." There is but one conclusion tenable : the 
"plates" will remain forever untranslated, unless the 
translator uses the means designed of God for that pur- 
pose. The inquiry is indeed pertinent : Is there any proof 
that Joseph Smith, Jr., ever used such an instrument as 
described by Mother Smith, for translating the Book of 
Mormon ? 

That the whole story is a fabrication of a mind so 
perversely fertile and teemingly prolific in deception, is 
evident from the following considerations. In 1822, 
Joseph Smith, Jr., and his brother were engaged to assist 
in digging a well for Willard Chase, of Manchester, 
N. Y. Chase's affidavit fixes this as the year, and is as 
follows : 



. After digging about twenty feet below the surface of the 
earth, we discovered a singularly appearing stone which excited 
my curiosity. I brought it to the top of the well, and as we 
were examining it, Joseph put it in his hat, and then his face 
into the top of the hat. . . . The next morning he came to me 
and wished to obtain the stone, alleging that he could see in it ; 
but I told him that I did not wish to part with it on account of 
it being a curiosity, but would lend it. After obtaining the 
stone, he began to publish abroad what wonders he could dis- 
cover by looking into it, and made so much disturbance among 
the credulous part of the community, that I ordered the stone 
to be returned. 1 



1 Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," quoted in "Story of the Mormons," 
p. 20. "Mormonism Unveiled," the first of the anti-Mormon works to 
appear, has ever been the object of the Saints' hatred. In "Palmyra to 
Independence" they give up six pages to an expose of Howe's errors. 
But they are the merest quibbles; the work itself they never touch. 



THE BOOK OF MORMON 43 

Joseph's brother Hyrum borrowed the stone, Joseph 
having already had it for two years before it was 
returned at the request of Mr. Chase, and, loaning it the 
second time, he was never able to recover it afterward. 

In the Schaff-Herzog "Encyclopedia of Religious 
Knowledge," page 1,576, under the caption "Mormon," 
is the account of a trial held before a justice of the 
peace in Chenango County, N. Y. Smith, the prisoner, 
appeared before the court on March 26, 1826, about one 
year after Hyrum had borrowed the "stone" from Chase. 
The charge against Smith was that of being "a dis- 
orderly person and an impostor." Tullidge, in his "Life 
of Joseph the Prophet," incidentally confirms the record 
of such a trial having been held, and devotes about eight 
pages of his volume to Joseph's account of the trial. 
Joseph says that he was accused of being a disorderly 
person, but says nothing about the charge of imposture. 
The "prophet" concludes his narrative by saying: 

The court finding the charges against me not sustained, I 
was accordingly acquitted, to the great satisfaction of my friends 
and vexation of my enemies, who were still determined upon 
molesting me ; but through the instrumentality of my new friend 
the constable, I was enabled to escape them and make my way 
home in safety. 1 

Joseph's description does not tally with the record of 
the court, and for the reader's benefit we here make a 
transcript of it. It says : 

Prisoner examined ; says he came from the town of Palmyra 
and had been at the home of Josiah Stowell in Bainbridge most 
of the time since ; had a small part of the time been looking for 
mines, but the major part had been employed by said Stowell on 
the farm and going to school ; that he had a certain stone, which 
he occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures 
in the bowels of the earth were ; that he professed to tell where 

1 Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet," p. 89. 



44 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

gold mines were at a distance under the ground and had looked 
for Stowell a number of times, and had informed him where he 
could find those treasures and Mr. Stowell had been engaged in 
looking for them ; that at Palmyra he had pretended to tell 
where money was buried in Pennsylvania, and while at Palmyra 
had frequently ascertained where lost property of various kinds 
was ; that he occasionally had been in the habit of looking 
through this stone for three years, but of late had pretty much 
given it up on account of injuring his health, especially his eyes 
— it made them sore ; that he did not solicit business of this 
kind, and had always rather declined having anything to do with 
the business. 

Josiah Stowell and Horace Stowell and Jonathan 
Thompson were witnesses at the trial, and on the charge 
preferred, that of being a disorderly person and an 
impostor, the record says: "Whereupon the Court finds 
the defendant guilty." 

We now pass to the testimony of David Whitmer, 
one of the "witnesses" whose "testimony" is supposed to 
add validity to the marvelous claims made for the Book 
of Mormon. He is the qualified historian of the period 
we are now studying, and what he announces is profess- 
edly what he knows and not what some one may have 
told him. And, what is better, he speaks directly to the 
subject: 

I will now give a description of the manner in which the 
Book of Mormon was translated (exactly what we wish to 
learn). Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into his hat 
(just as Chase said that Joseph practiced sorcery), and put his 
face into his hat (just as Chase described it), drawing it closely 
around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the 
spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling 
parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One 
character at a time, and under it was the translation in English. 
Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, 
who was the principal scribe, and when it was written down and 
repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would 



THE BOOK OF MORMON 45 

disappear, and another character with the interpretation thereof 
would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the 
gift and power of God, and not by the power of man. ... . At 
times when Brother Joseph would attempt to translate he would 
look into the hat in which the stone had been placed, he found 
that he was spiritually blind and could not translate. . . . When 
the Book of Mormon was in the hands of the printer more 
money was needed to finish printing it. We were waiting for 
Martin Harris to sell his farm in order to raise the necessary 
funds. . . . Brother Hyrum said it had been suggested to him 
that some of the brethren might go to Toronto, Canada, and 
sell the copyright of the Book of Mormon for considerable 
money; and he persuaded Joseph to inquire of the Lord about 
it. Joseph concluded to do so. He had not yet given up the 
stone. Joseph looked into the hat in which he placed the stone, 
and received a revelation that some of the brethren should go 
to Toronto, Canada, and they would sell the copyright of the 
Book of Mormon. 1 

This "revelation" proved false, and in the first oppor- 
tunity that was given the "seer-stone" outside the Book 
of Mormon it was a flat failure. But Joseph was equal 
to the occasion, for when these "brethren" came back 
with a "water-haul," he wriggled out of the predicament 
created by saying: "Some revelations are of God; some 
revelations are of man; and some revelations are of the 
devil." But as this one came through the "seer-stone," 
and was acknowledged to be either of man or of the 
devil, who knows but that the same can be affirmed 
of the Book of Mormon? The trustworthiness of the 
"stone" is safely challenged at the first opportunity for 
demonstrating its value. 

It begins to look suspicious for the "prophet." The 
"Urim and Thummim" was composed of "two smooth, 
three-cornered diamonds," but he invariably used a 
"stone" (always spoken of in the singular). That Whit- 



1 Whitmer's "Address to Believers," pp. 12, 30, 31, 



46 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

mer correctly describes Joseph's methods, there is no 
manner of doubt to the unbiased mind, and the story- 
bears upon the face of it such changes as would naturally 
arise with new forms of opposition. As a sorcerer looking 
for gold mines and coined money, he used a stone and 
looked into his hat (so says Chase, of Manchester, N. 
Y. ; as did also Joseph in an open court), and as a "rev- 
elator" he used a stone by looking into his hat (so says 
Whitmer, who was one of the eye-witnesses to the pro- 
ceedings). And this is the man who was twice honored by 
an angel's visit — once in 1820, and again in 1823 ; this 
sorcerer, this Simon Magus of the nineteenth century, is 
the man who claims to be the mouthpiece of God, making 
known "the fulness of the everlasting gospel." And the 
only testimony that the world has as to the truthfulness 
of these angelic visits is the unsupported testimony of a 
man who was convicted of being an impostor, and who, 
when ostensibly engaged in making known the will of 
Heaven, treats with contempt the chosen instruments of 
God, supplanting his "three-cornered diamond Urim and 
Thummim" with a common "darnick." 

Evidently the Lord had put himself to much unneces- 
sary trouble in preserving those "plates" and the "Urim 
and Thummim." So proficient did the "prophet" become 
that he could use a "stone," instead of the "interpreters," 
and the "plates" were not in sight at all, for only a 
parchment appeared, or "something resembling parch- 
ment," and on that, says Whitmer, "appeared the writ- 
ing." Either Whitmer has lied, and is therefore dis- 
credited when making his former assertions, or Joseph 
Smith has lied in the story he has told. The acceptance 
of either alternative is destructive of the belief that God 
had anything to do with the book. Its fraudulent char- 
acter is, therefore, highly probable. 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS WITNESSES 47. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Book of Mormon and Its Witnesses. 

When the Book of Mormon made its appearance, its 
genuineness was abundantly attested by an array of 
names that was printed in its introductory part. The 
reason for these affidavits and avowals will become clear 
as we proceed in our study. The "plates" had never 
been placed on public exhibition, Smith's secretiveness 
having kept them from the gaze of the vulgar throng, 
hence when their contents were to be placed before the 
world, they required some other assurance than that 
afforded by their internal evidence. Without further 
comment, let us see what these affirmants had to say. 
The first in order was the testimony of the three wit- 
nesses: 

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tribes, tongues and 
people unto whom this work shall come, that we, through the 
grace of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen 
the plates which contain this record, which is the record of the 
people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and 
also the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which 
hath been spoken ; and we also know that they have been trans- 
lated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared 
it unto us ; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. 
And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are 
upon the plates ; and they have been shown us by the power of 
God and not of man. And we declare with soberness, that an 
angel of God came down from heaven and he brought and laid 
(them) before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and 
the engravings thereon ; and we know that it is by the grace of 
God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and 
bear record that these things are true; and it is marvelous in 



48 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

our eyes ; nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us that 
we should bear record of it ; wherefore, to be obedient to the 
commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And 
we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our 
generations ; but this generation shall have my word through 
the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally 
in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the 
Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Amen. Oliver Cowdery, 

David Whitmer, 
Martin Harris. 

And also the testimony of the eight witnesses: 

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people 
unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the 
translator of this work, has shown us the plates of which hath 
been spoken, which have appearance of gold; and as many of 
the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with 
our hands ; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which 
has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workman- 
ship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that 
the said Smith has shown (them) unto us, for we have seen 
and hefted, and know of a surety that said Smith has got the 
plates of which hath, been spoken. And we give our names unto 
the world, to witness unto the world that which we have 
seen ; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it. 

Christian Whitmer, 
Jacob Whitmer, 
Peter Whitmer, 
John Whitmer, 
Hiram Page, 
Joseph Smith, Sen., 
Hyrum Smith, 
Samuel H. Smith. 1 

Following our usual course, it is of interest to know 
of the importance attached to this testimony by those 
who hold it of any assignable value. One writer, in 
rejecting the idea that these men imagined the sights 
which they so minutely describe, and consequently alleg- 



1 Preface to "Nephite Records" ( Book of Mormon }. 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS WITNESSES 49 

ing their competency to testify concerning these facts, 
says in reply to an opponent : 

The eleven witnesses . . . were men of, at least, ordinary- 
abilities, while many of them had a fair English education, and 
a moderate acquaintance with the common affairs of business. 
Now it is highly improbable, if not quite impossible, for an 
illiterate young man of from twenty-three to twenty-five years 
of age, as was Joseph Smith, with whom they were most inti- 
mately acquainted, and with whom they frequently associated, 
to have deceived these eleven witnesses. 

In attempting to establish that Joseph really had the 
"plates," "of which hath been spoken," this critic thus 



But for him to prepare a large book of plates, and those 
plates engraved with characters that had "the appearance of 
ancient work, and of curious workmanship," a work requiring 
great labor and most consummate skill, and then palm them off 
on eleven rational men as genuine records, the records of very 
remote ages, and sacred at that, is quite past belief. The facts 
are, their testimony is true and valid for the purpose for which 
it was given, or else these witnesses are deceivers of the basest 
class. 

Nor does he stop here, for he is a man of great bold- 
ness of utterance, which no doubt is commendable so 
long. as it is not depreciated by brag and bluster. Appar- 
ently he realizes the nature of the problem, for he adds: 

If they, personally, saw not the plates, and the engravings 
thereon ; and if they saw not an angel of God come down from 
heaven ; and if the angel did not bring the plates and lay them 
before their eyes ; and if they did not hear the voice of God 
themselves ; and if the plates were not shown them "by the 
power of God and not of man" — then they were vile and willful 
impostors, for they unequivocally affirm as much. . . . Joseph, 
Oliver, Martin and David — nothing is said of the "eight" — their 
united testimony lives to-day, though they have passed away to 
the God who gave them being. They were competent and cred- 



50 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

ible witnesses; their joint testimony is now in force. Men of 
intelligence, men of integrity, fearless, unflinching men, their 
testimony and their memory will live and be honored when 
their defamers and traducers will have gone down into oblivion, 
or are remembered only with pity and with shame. 1 

There is no mistaking the position taken by this 
author, and the terrible alternative he offers us upon our 
rejection of the testimony of these witnesses, as cruel as 
it is, is, nevertheless, of his own choosing. If by attack- 
ing the credibility of these witnesses we are bound to 
conclude that they "are deceivers of the basest class," 
and "vile and willful impostors," we yield to the neces- 
sity. That they were "men of intelligence, men of 
integrity, and fearless, unflinching men," we seriously 
question. In saying this we are not partial to men who 
have been "their traducers and defamers," some of 
whom may have gone down to oblivion or are remem- 
bered only with pity and shame, nor are we particularly 
concerned with the fate that has overtaken men of that 
stripe ; but for Joseph, Oliver, David and Martin, these 
arch-conspirators, we have a feeling of profound con- 
tempt. This statement serves to define the issue now 
before us. 

In seeing such an array of witnesses' names on the 
fly-leaf of a book that purports to come from God, minds 
of a certain type may be deeply impressed with the 
alleged genuineness of the book, while it only creates in 
our minds a suspicion of its genuineness. So far as we 
know, there is no other "sacred" book or books that have 
elicited from God the same overweening carefulness that 
his work should not be questioned. Hitherto he has 
spoken, and has required none to vouch for the genuine- 
ness of his messages, in any such puerile fashion. He 



l Blair's "Joseph the Seer," pp. 102, 104, 107- 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS WITN ESSES 51 

sends his sun to shine in the heavens, but dispenses with 
a herald to announce the coming of the light. He has 
always resented the interference of those who seek to 
"steady the ark." Why, then, this unprecedented care to 
commend this book? Allowing that he had anything to 
do with its introduction into the world, it would seem 
that he early expected that it would strike a "snag" 
somewhere, and sought by the aid of eleven men to tide 
it over these danger-points. As we shall see before we 
have completed our investigation, that if God lent a hand 
in this enterprise, and at any place put on it the stamp of 
his approval, he should be everlastingly ashamed of his 
job. The English language is inadequate to a proper 
characterization of it. It makes one wish that he might 
have a working knowledge of the "Reformed Egyptian," 
so that in the little space allotted he might be able to 
say much. And yet these witnesses affirm that God sup- 
plied the material, translated the text, exhibited the plates 
to these men, and approbated the work withal, and gave 
them commission to make it known unto the world. It is 
a libel on God ! 

But are these witnesses to be believed? That is the 
question. We shall attempt their impeachment with their 
own words and books. Special space is reserved for a 
detailed study of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants , 
but for our present purpose we refer to Section 4, Para- 
graph 3, of that work, which reads : 

I have reserved those things (the plates?) which I have 
intrusted unto you my servant Joseph for a wise purpose in 
me, and it (the purpose?) shall be made known unto future 
generations; but this generation shall have my word through 
you ; and in addition to your testimony, the testimony of three 
of my servants (Oliver, Martin and David), and they shall go 
forth with my words, that are given through you ; yea, they 
shall know of a surety that these things are true, for from 



52 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

heaven will I declare it unto them ; I will give them power to 
behold and view these things as they are, and to none else will 
I grant this power to receive this same testimony among this 
generation. 

Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that God 
actually gave this "revelation," and this the "Saints" do 
assume, what must have been his surprise and chagrin 
upon the completion of the Book of Mormon when he 
saw that these "servants" of his had been brazen enough 
to give the testimony of eleven men, when by express 
statement he had informed them that he had limited it 
to three! He had said that he would give this power "to 
behold these things" (the plates) "as they are," and to 
"none else" would he grant "this power to receive this 
same testimony." We are well aware of the usual wrig- 
gle that the "Saints" make to invalidate the charge that 
is here preferred. They assert that God denied "this 
same power," as if by this he meant that he would not 
go to the same trouble to show these plates from heaven 
to the "eight" as he had for the "three." But "the same 
testimony" in this instance is construed in the light of its 
explanatory clause, to "view these things as they are." 
So, if the testimony of the "eight" does not mean that 
they are affirming a knowledge of "these things as they 
are," will some one be good enough to say just what it 
does mean? If by seeing and hefting they were not con- 
vinced that they had seen and hefted these things as they 
are, then is there no sense in their testimony, and less of 
sense in the English language. 

Thus it is manifest that, if the "revelation" is true, 
the "testimony" is false, and, if false, the testifiers are 
liars. And if the men who got up the Book of Mormon 
were capable of misrepresenting affairs by swearing that 
God did something which he said he would not do — in 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS WITNESSES 53 

other words, that these men were capable of lying about 
a thing as sacred as this is claimed to be ; in fact, did lie 
about the testimony of the "eight" — then, who is bold 
enough to affirm that they told the truth about the testi- 
mony of the "three" ? We can believe neither the one nor 
the other. The very alternative held out to us that these 
witnesses are "deceivers of the basest class," and that 
they "were vile and willful impostors," is a conclusion 
that commends itself for its sanity. Henceforth, in com- 
mon with the "Saints," we shall disregard the testimony 
of the "eight." They are unmitigated liars touching this 
question, allowing their own books and words to judge 
them, and if it should so happen that the Book of Mor- 
mon can ever be proved to be what is said for it by its 
friends, it must be upon evidence stronger than what has 
already been offered. 

Before we pass to the examination of the credibility 
of the testimony given by the Mormon triumvirate, 
Oliver, David and Martin, we shall first get a Mormon 
estimate of the value of it. Pres. Joseph Smith, of the 
Reorganized Church, declares : "The testimony of these 
witnesses is plain, and of a nature to preclude the possi- 
bility of their having been deceived. They could not 
have been mistaken, hence their testimony is true, or they 
are liars." 1 Apostle Orson Pratt is just as emphatic in 
his utterances when he says: "If he [speaking of Joseph 
Smith] was sincere, then the Book of Mormon is a divine 
revelation, and this church must be the only true and 
living church upon the face of the earth, and there is 
salvation in none other. This is an immense conclusion, 
but we can come to no other the moment we admit his 
sincerity. . . . No reasonable person will say that these 



iSmith's History, p. 



54 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

persons were themselves deceived; the nature of their 
testimony is such that they must either be bold, daring 
impostors, or else the Book of Mormon is true." 1 

Thus do the Mormons themselves determine the 
ground upon which they want the battle to be fought. 
They will not allow the non-Mormon to occupy neutral 
ground. With them it is to accept Mormonism or be 
damned, and we protest against such an "immense con- 
clusion." If we must say it, and there is no other way 
out of it, then Joseph Smith and these witnesses were 
"liars" and "bold, daring impostors." In the absence of 
sufficient proof to establish the Saints' affirmative, with- 
out a single incriminating statement of our own, we 
must conclude that they are just as vile as they have been 
made out to be. If they, assuring us of the sincerity of 
these men, and enjoining us to accept their book, hold to 
this belief, then it behooves them to establish the fact of 
that sincerity. 

That an attempt has been made to establish this sin- 
cerity is unquestioned. W. W. Blair says : 

Oliver Cowdery, who became an attorney of pronounced 
ability, always bore undeviating testimony to the Book of Mor- 
mon till the cold waves of death swept him from the shores of 
time. And he, after years of reflection and profound thought 
upon the matter, never marred his testimony. . . . Martin Harris, 
now passed within the vail, whose years reached more than 
fourscore and ten, reaffirmed his testimony, time after time, 
since 1829. . . . David Whitmer, dying aged over eighty years, 
a man of high intellectual attainments, as noticed in the former 
part ,of our article, he, too, always unflinchingly and unquali- 
fiedly maintained his testimony concerning the Book of Mor- 
mon. . . . 

It should be borne in mind that these three witnesses with- 
drew from active fellowship in the church as early as 1838, but 



I'Tratt's Work," pp. 55, 56. 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS WITNESSES 55 

not for want of faith in the Book of Mormon, or in the pro- 
phetic mission of Joseph. Some, if not all, of them thought 
the church was swerving from the right, and was tending to 
apostasy. And it is probable that personal grievances and per- 
sonal interests had much to do with them in shaping their course 
toward the church. But amid all their trials and afflictions, and 
though separated from the church in their associations, and hav- 
ing strong inducements to abandon their faith in the Book of 
Mormon, they nevertheless, ever and to the last, steadfastly 
maintained, with cheerful and earnest zeal, and with loving hope 
in God, their marvelous and highly important testimony. 1 

The above lengthy extract indicates the character of 
the defense made by the present-day members of this 
•SmtV/isonian institution, variously known under titles 
connecting it with the church of Christ, and shows that 
it consists in the belief that the failure of these witnesses 
to renounce their original testimony, proves their sin- 
cerity. That it raises a presumption in favor of such a 
conclusion may indeed be granted, for usually it is in- 
ferred that a man will not bear persecution for a lifetime 
when wanting in sincerity. If the above excerpt were in 
exact accord with truth, there would possibly be some 
weight given it, but it is not true itself. The three wit- 
nesses did not "withdraw from active fellowship in the 
church,'' they were "fired." Whether their summary dis- 
missal were justifiable is quite another question, but the 
fact remains that when Joseph and Sidney had come to 
Far West, in Missouri, in 1838, Whitmer and Cowdery 
both fell under the "prophet's" displeasure, and they were 
dismissed in disgrace, fearful even of their lives, and 
with gross crimes charged against them. It would not 
be strictly parliamentary to tell Blair that he consciously 
prevaricated when he wrote the foregoing article con- 



"Joseph the Seer," pp. 104, 105, 107. 



56 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

cerning these "witnesses," for if he did not know it was 
because he did not want to know, that one of the charges 
that Whitmer made against both the Brighamites and 
the Josephites was that Joseph Smith was not entitled to 
the prophetic honors he so assiduously sought, and that 
for this the "prophet" expelled Whitmer. 

But, getting back to the possible presumption created 
in favor of the sincerity of men, let us say that it exists, 
only in case there is not a stronger reason for them to 
"steadfastly maintain" their lie. Such a reason we be- 
lieve exists, the reason for which belief we shall tell in 
the words of another : 

Let us suppose that the whole thing was a conspiracy and a 
fraud; then what would be the probable course of these wit- 
nesses? Would one of them, because he had a disagreement 
with the arch-conspirator, be likely to go out on the streets and 
denounce his co-conspirator as a cheat, a liar and a fraud, know- 
ing that while doing so he would lay his own hypocritical con- 
duct bare to the gaze of an indignant public? Would he be 
likely to uncork the vials of his own guilty wrath against his 
followers when he knew it would be but the signal for his own 
exposure to the righteous contempt of an injured public? 
Hardly ! No such course would be in the least probable. The 
interest of these four men in keeping their own counsel was 
mutual. If one suffered, they must all suffer. If one was 
exposed, all must be exposed. If there is anything in this wide 
world that a criminal dreads, it is exposure. . . . For a man to 
confess his complicity in such a nefarious transaction, would be 
to show himself capable of any crime in the catalogue, and 
would set the mark of Cain upon his brow, and brand his pos- 
terity with the ineradicable mark of infamy. 1 

This is the explanation of that threat of Rigdon and 
the counterthreat of Brigham at the time of the breaking 
up at Nauvoo. "Brother Sidney says, if we go to oppos- 
ing him, he will tell our secrets. But I would say, 'Oh, 



l D. H. Bays, in his "Doctrines and Dogmas of Mormonism," p. 247. 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS WITNESSES $7 

don't, Brother Sidney ! don't tell our secrets — oh, don't !* 
But if he tells our secrets, we will tell his. Tit for tat." 

Then, it is known that these three witnesses all died 
outside the church, in spite of the "immense conclusion" 
that there is salvation in none other. To believe that 
these three men saw an angel, that they were ordained 
by the hands of an angel, that they heard the voice of 
God approving this "latter-day work," and then, in the 
possession of all these facts, and in spite of all of them, 
that they, the whole kit of them, should within eight 
years turn their backs upon the church without whose 
pale there awaited damnation, and all this because they 
had a "personal grievance," is preposterously absurd. 
Sane men are judged to act from sane motives, and the* 
motive for such a foolish course is not adequately ac- 
counted for by the Saints. If the issue is to be settled 
on the ground of presumption, it is in favor of the 
hypothesis that every conscious act of these men in 
bringing forth the Book of Mormon was fraudulent, 
hence they were "liars" and "willful impostors," and 
their book lacks every mark of being divinely accredited. 

Coming, now, more directly to the testimony itself, 
we inquire, first of all, just what did Martin Harris 
know? According to the "prophet's" own account of 
the story, not what Martin Harris said, we learn that 
Joseph and the "three" went one day to the woods, a 
favorite spot for God to reveal himself. To the un- 
initiated into Mormon mysteries it is passing strange 
that the Lord encountered a greater task in exhibiting 
the plates to the "three" than what Joseph did in show- 
ing them to the "eight." Joseph not alone allowed his 
crowd to see them, but also "heft" them, whereas the 
Lord with the greatest difficulty was able to let them see 
them. On that day "revelations" were slow in coming, 



38 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

so after trying to establish the connection for a time, 
Harris, thinking that he was a "Jonah" to that crowd, 
left the "prophet" and the other two prospective wit- 
nesses, and retired to a distant spot for prayer. Not 
long after Harris' departure, Joseph, David and Oliver 
were rewarded with a sight of "these things." Joseph 
then says : 

I now left David and Oliver and went in pursuit of Martin 
Harris, whom I found at a considerable distance fervently en- 
gaged in prayer. He soon told me that he had not yet prevailed 
■with the Lord, and earnestly requested me to join him in prayer, 
that he might realize the same blessings which we had received. 
We accordingly joined in prayer, and immediately obtained our 
desires, for before we had finished the same vision was opened 
to our view, at least it was again to me (Joseph makes himself 
secure in the evant of Martin ever denying the "yarn"), and I 
once more beheld and heard the same things.' 1 

Joseph then adds : 

Martin Harris cried out, apparently in ecstacy of joy, " 'Tis 
enough ! mine eyes have beheld !" and, jumping up, he shouted, 
"Hosanna !" blessing God, and otherwise rejoiced exceedingly. 

According to this story, there is not a man on earth 
who can swear that all four saw the same things. The 
angel might have "switched" plates on them, and even 
Joseph could not have told the difference, for without his 
"Urim and Thummim" he could no more distinguish one 
plate from another, or one set of plates from another, 
than could Harris. The more probable explanation is 
this : Up till this time Martin Harris had been deceived, 
Cowdery and Whitmer alone being in the scheme with 
Smith. But Harris was daily becoming more and more 
anxious to have a glimpse of "these things." At first he 
was satisfied with the pages of manuscript, the pages that 



Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet," p. 71, 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS WITNESSES 59 

were lost. The only reproof he got was that the Lord 
( ?) called him a "wicked man." In May of 1829 he was 
still insistent and the Lord (?) tried to scold him into 
obedience again. But the pressure was too strong; Mar- 
tin had to be let into the "secret." Others were clamor- 
ing for a vision, which caused the Lord to let Joseph 
make a private exhibit of them to the "eight." And this 
story of the Lord showing them the plates that day in 
the woods was concocted to shut off the incessant clamor 
that was being made by outside parties for Joseph to 
show them the plates. 

Sidelights on the history of these men strengthen the 
belief that they were capable of concocting just such a 
scheme as we have described. Eighty Mormons unite in 
charging Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer with being 
counterfeiters, blacklegs, thieves and liars, further and 
directly accusing them with using every art and strat- 
agem to deceive and defraud the Saints. Because they 
stole property and feared prosecution, they fled to Far 
West, Mo. And to show that it was not a mere 
aberration on Cowdery 's part, he was accused of having 
been guilty of malfeasance in office while he was a jus- 
tice of the peace in Kirtland, Ohio. Understanding that 
this was less than a year subsequent to the organization, 
it appears that his religion had not done him much good 
the first year. In November of 1831 the Lord (?) had 
Cowdery under suspicion, deeming it unwise to send 
money by him to the Saints in the West. That he was, 
however, in good standing is shown by the fact that he 
was promoted to the office of high priest in 1834. Moral 
fitness never was, nor is it now, a qualification for office 
in the Mormon priesthood. Their conference minutes 
will show that where a man becomes immoral in a given 
territory, he becomes soon thereafter an object of special 



60 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

revelation, and he is sent to another mission removed 
from the first where his reputation was unsavory. And 
this is the type of men whom Blair praised when in his 
peroration he said, "Men of intelligence, men of integ- 
rity ( !), fearless and unflinching men," whose testimony 
will live when their traducers and defamers were remem- 
bered only with pity and with shame. He sees fit to 
praise them now, but time was that they bore all the 
opprobrium that an apostate church could heap upon 
them. And, as we have seen, not one of them died in 
good standing with the rival claimants to the succession. 1 
That Whitmer reaffirmed is true, and it was all that 
he in consistency could do and retain his position as one 
of the leaders of a sect. Elder Blair said that Cowdery 
reaffirmed, but he got it out of Reynolds' "Myth of the 
Manuscript Found," and would trust that book on no 
other controverted position that it takes. Besides that 
record of the reaffirmation, it contains not one word 
about the "angel," not one word about the voice of God, 
and what he says can be just as true for a fraud as it 
could for the use to which the Mormons put it. He 
said: 

I wrote with my own pen the entire Book of Mormon (save 
a few pages) as it fell from the lips of the prophet Joseph Smith, 
as he translated it by the Urim and Thummim, by the gift and 
power of God, or, as it is called by that book, the "holy inter- 
preters." I beheld with my own eyes and handled with my own 
hands the gold plates from which the translation was made. I 
also saw with my eyes and handled with my hands the holy 
interpreters. That book is true. Sidney Rigdon did not write 
it. Mr. Spaulding did not write it. I wrote it myself as it fell 
from the lips of the prophet. 2 



!See ante, p. 55. 

2 " Myth of the Manuscript Found," and quoted "Smith's History," 
Vol. I. p. 50. 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS WITNESSES 61 

And any well-instructed Saint will tell you in almost 
the exact words of Cowdery that the Book of Mormon 
is true. God has shown many of them that it is true, 
hence the task of selecting the witnesses was for him a 
work of supererogation. And, of course, if they know 
that it is true, it is true. 

As for Martin Harris reaffirming his original testi- 
mony, it can not be shown. There are statements to that 
effect, but they are not reliably traced to Harris. Al- 
though this man lived upwards of forty years after the 
death of Joseph Smith, Jr., yet the "Saints" ever "shied 
off" from him throughout his remaining days. What is 
reputed to have come from him is no more reliable than 
is the story that Smith told about the angel appearing to 
Martin in the woods. Martin never said it, it was Joseph 
Smith ; so with the so-called reaffirmation we have what 
one of the Smiths has reported. The evidence in the 
case all points in the one direction ; namely, that these 
conspirators decided to allow their secret to die with 
them, with the exception of Whitmer, who had the added 
advantage of being a ringleader of another faction. So 
much for what may be considered the probable course as 
argued for or against their testimony. We reject it as a 
fabrication, given for no other purpose than to deceive, 
and acquiesce in the alternative offered that these men 
were "liars" and "willful impostors" and "deceivers of 
the basest class." 



62 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Book of Mormon : Its Translation. 

When the Book of Mormon made its appearance it 
proved to be what had been "prophesied" it should be, 
"a marvelous work and a wonder," and at no time in its 
most eventful history was it more wonderful or marvel- 
ous than when it had passed through its first edition. 
That in some respects it was on a par with many other 
literary crudities of its age may be true, but that it bore 
every evidence of having been handled by illiterates is 
shown by the fact that it has improved constantly with the 
literary attainments of its revisers. Its apologists soon 
found that its so-called typographical errors militated 
against its acceptance with many people, and the sus- 
picion was gravely entertained that God had not taken 
the prominent part in its "coming forth" as had been so 
stoutly maintained. In this chapter we wish to look at 
some of these imperfections. 

There is no other one problem that presents itself to 
the student who has undertaken an examination of the 
foundations of Mormonism whose solution is so elusive 
as that of reproducing the exact scenes of these actors 
while translating the Book of Mormon. We have already 
referred to Whitmer's description of the work, and what 
he says is clear, so far as it goes, but some details are 
omitted. Joseph Smith III., son of the "prophet/' inter- 
viewed his aged mother, Emma Hale Smith, and she said 
that in writing for Joseph, to use her exact words, "I 
frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table 
close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat. 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS TRANSLATION 63 

with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with 
nothing between us." * She said that he had no book or 
manuscript at hand from which he read while dictating, 
and that the "plates" lay on a table wrapped in a small 
linen cloth which she had given him to fold them in. 
She once felt of the "plates" and was able to trace their 
outline and shape, that they were pliable like thick paper 
and rustled with a metallic sound. 

And t^t story is just as clear as Whitmer's. In 
refuting the objection interposed against "translating" a 
work so large as the Book of Mormon in so short a time, 
Elder George Reynolds, in his "Myth of the Manuscript 
Found," 2 says : 

At the outset it must be recollected that the transaction was 
accomplished by no common method, by no ordinary means. It 
was done by divine aid. There were no delays over obscure 
passages, no difficulties over the choice of words, no stoppages 
from ignorance of the translator; no time was wasted in inves- 
tigation or argument over the value, intent or meaning of cer- 
tain characters, and there were no references to authorities. 
These difficulties to human work were removed. All was as 
simple as when a clerk writes from dictation. The translation 
of the characters appeared on the Urim and Thummim, sentence 
by sentence, and as soon as correctly transcribed, the next would 
appear. So the inquiry narrows down to the consideration of 
this simple question, How much could Oliver Cowdery write in 
a day? 

And this is just as clear as is the story told by Sister 
Emma or David Whitmer. Reynolds also tells us what 
Martin Harris knew about the transaction. He says : 

Martin explained the transaction as follows : By the aid of 
the seer stone sentences would appear and were read by the 
prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say, 
"Written," and if correctly written, that sentence would dis- 



1 Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet," p. 7933. 

2P. 71. 



64 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

appear and another appear in its place; but if not written cor- 
rectly, it remained until corrected, so that the translation was 
just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language 
then used. 1 

Brigham H. Roberts has written a brief history of 
the church, and, on page 28 of that volume, tells of the 
manner in which the plates were translated. He says : 

The prophet, scanning through the Urim and Thummim, the 
golden pages, would see appear, in lieu of the strange characters 
engraved thereon, their equivalent in English words. These he 
would repeat and the scribe, separated from him by a veil or 
curtain, would write them down. . . . Until the writing was 
correct in every particular, the words last given would remain 
before the eyes of the translator, and not disappear. But on 
the necessary correction having been made, they \vould immedi- 
ately pass away and be succeeded by others. 

Taking any one of these statements singly, no great 
difficulty arises in understanding it, but when we seek 
their combination trouble is at hand. For instance, 
Roberts says that the characters appeared while "scanning 
through" the Urim and Thummim, while Reynolds says 
as emphatically, that the characters appeared "on" the 
Urim and Thummim. Joseph's wife aided in the trans- 
lation while seated at the side of her husband, while, in 
another instance, the translator and amanuensis were 
separated from each other by a curtain. We also call 
attention to an observation already made, that Joseph's 
wife speaks of the "stone" instead of the plural form, 
which is incorrect, if Lucy Smith's description of the 
Urim and Thummim is to be accepted. But where were 
the plates all the time, and of what value to the proceed- 
ings were they? Cowdery savs that the "plates" were not 
in sight at all, as also does Whitmer ; Mrs. Emma Smith 
says they were covered with a linen cloth; Brigham 

lw Myth of the Manuscript Found," p. 91. 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS TRANSLATION 65 

Roberts alone speaks of the "prophet" scanning "the 
golden pages." There appears uniformity of agreement 
that the "stone" in every instance was used in Joseph's 
hat. This served to make a space absolutely dark, as 
Whitmer tells us, and in that "the spiritual light would 
shine." Did the "characters" appear on the stone, or 
did the translation in English form appear ? No one can 
tell. "Frequently one character would make two lines 
of manuscript, while others made but a word or two 
words." One man tells us that the "graven characters 
would appear in succession to the seer and directly 
under the character, when viewed through the glasses, 
would be the translation in English." So from one 
"authority" we learn that only the English appeared, 
and from another, that both the character and English 
words. 

But, whatever discordant testimony is offered regard- 
ing the manner of the translating, there is no doubt as 
to the correctness of the results. "Until the writing was 
correct in every particular, the words last given would 
remain before the eyes of the translator, and not disap- 
pear. But on the necessary correction having been made, 
they would immediately pass away and be succeeded by 
others." "Correct in every particular" is rather a sweep- 
ing statement, but it is Mormon testimony, written by 
a believer in the Book of Mormon. And if that state- 
ment is correct, there can be no question as to the in- 
fallibility of the work that was done by Smith. Smith 
was reputedly illiterate, and appeared to have some diffi- 
culty in his spelling, for, having words that he could not 
pronounce, he had to spell them out for Cowdery. Spell- 
ing is a "particular" in which, if the work was correctly 
done, no imperfection should be found. The form of a 
verb is a "particular," and must be correctly used in every 



66 MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

instance in order to show that the "Urim and Thummim" 
was in good working order. If the Book had been a 
work of Joseph Smith's alone, we should have found 
those "imperfections of man" which the Book itself 
apologizes for, but since God took a hand in the work, 
and would not allow the English words to pass away 
until they had been correctly written in every particular, 
we should expect a perfect work. And because the work 
was as simple as when a clerk writes from dictation, with 
no hesitancy over obscure passages, or no need for refer- 
ence to authorities, the work was expedited to agree 
with the swiftness of Cowdery's pen. 

A sidelight is thrown on the situation in which Joseph 
was safeguarded from error, by Section 9 of the Book 
of Commandments, in which he says : 

Now, behold I say unto you, that because you delivered up 
so many writings, which you had power to translate, into the 
hands of a wicked man, you have lost them, and you have also 
lost your gift at the same time, nevertheless, it has been restored 
unto you again; therefore see that you are faithful and go on 
unto the finishing of the remainder of the work as you have 
begun. Do not run faster than you have strength and means 
provided to translate, and be diligent unto the end. 

Not only are we warranted in our belief that Joseph 
Smith, according to the light that we have on the prob- 
lem, had every safeguard, but Mormonism accepts the 
product of Smith's ignorance, multiplied by God's power, 
as being absolutely infallible. Says Orson Pratt, in 
speaking of the divisions found in Protestantism, owing, 
as he believed, to the ambiguity of the English Bible, 
and due to errors arising from an uninspired translation, 
that "the only way to remedy this great evil is to obtain 
another revelation of the gospel, free from all the cor- 
ruptions and uncertainty which characterize the English 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS TRANSLATION 67 

Bible. Such a revelation is the Book of Mormon; the 
most infallible certainty characterizes every ordinance 
and every doctrinal point revealed in that book. In it 
there is no ambiguity, no room for controversy, no doc- 
trine so imperfectly expressed, that two persons would 
draw two conclusions therefrom." 

As an example of this, it is not amiss to call the atten- 
tion of our Mormon friends to the fact that "Joseph III." 
and "Joseph F." draw contrary doctrines from the Book 
of Mormon, in that the first uses it to prove that polyg- 
amy is wrong, and the second, to prove that the Book of 
Mormon sanctions polygamy. Again, Whitmer, by the 
means of the seer stone, in that a revelation was received 
on that subject through the stone, denies that Joseph 
has the right to "any other gift," hence, is not a prophet ; 
whereas, the Josephites and Brighamites both use the 
Book of Mormon to prove that he is a prophet. Hence 
we have the anomaly of the "seer stone" contradicting 
the Book of Mormon, and what the Josephites see in 
the Book of Mormon, Whitmer says is not in the book. 
Further, if the errors of an imperfect translation are the 
cause of the divisions in Christendom, then manifestly 
what is needed is not a "new revelation of the gospel," 
but a new and correct translation of the one that we 
have. The Mormons affect to believe the Bible so far 
as it is translated correctly, and, being so zealous in this, 
we can but wonder whether they believe the Book of 
Mormon so far as it is correctly translated. In Nauvoo, 
they printed a new edition of the Book of Mormon, and 
having already supplanted the words "Author and Pro- 
prietor" of the first edition with the words "Translated 
by Joseph Smith, Jr.," in later editions, they did, in this 
one instance, have the boldness to piace on the title page 
the words, "Carefully revised by the translator." From 



68 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

this it is apparent that so defective was the first transla- 
tion, notwithstanding its infallibility, that the "trans- 
lator" could after a few years do a better job without 
the "Urim and Thummim ;" nor do they know that it is 
correct now. 

Lamoni Call, of Bountiful, Utah, has a little volume 
entitled "Two Thousand Changes in the Book of Mor- 
mon," in which he claims to have made note of that 
many changes that were made between the first edition 
of the book and the year 1898. To be exact, he vouches 
for having noted 2,038 changes ; 698 of these changes 
were from "which" to "who." Not only are the changes 
of a grammatical character, but words and phrases are 
added or eliminated subject to the will of the "trans- 
lator." "It came to pass" is a phrase that appears with 
less frequency in the later editions. Those parts of the 
Book of Mormon that are in the phraseology of the King 
James Version of the Bible were modified with the least 
frequency Linn, in his "Story of the Mormons," calls 
attention to not less than twenty-five whole chapters that 
were bodily appropriated from the Scriptures. A com- 
parison of these several chapters, as recorded in the 
modern Book of Mormon, will show that Call was cor- 
rect in his observation that these parts suffered fewer 
alterations. 

In the preface to the second edition of the Book of 
Mormon, which was printed in 1837, the publishers, 
doubtless having learned of the criticisms made of the 
imperfections contained in the first edition, said: 

Individuals acquainted with book printing are aware of the 
numerous typographical errors which always occur in manu- 
script editions. It is only necessary to say that the whole has 
been carefully re-examined and compared with original manu- 
scripts by Elder Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of the Book 
of Mormon, assisted by the present printer, Brother O. Cow- 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS TRANSLATION 69 

dery, who formerly wrote the greatest portion of the same as 
dictated by Brother Smith. 

In this "preface" it seems that the publishers were 
conscious that the first edition was imperfect, but these, 
imperfections consisted of typographical errors. The 
writer, Lamoni Call, to whom reference was made above, 
in the midst of his examination of the Book of Mormon 
respecting its imperfections, sought help from Joseph F. 
Smith, president of the Utah Church. In reply to a 
letter bearing on this subject, Mr. Smith said, in part: 

I regret, probably as much as you do, the existence in the 
Book of Mormon as well as other church works of typograph- 
ical and grammatical errors, but these are due to the imperfec- 
tions of men whose handiwork in comparison with the handi- 
work of God is always faulty and imperfect. But this is only 
the evidence of man's weakness and does not destroy the per- 
fection of God's works, nor should they impair our confidence 
in them. 1 

From this we infer that this exalted Mormon believes 
the Book of Mormon so "far as it is translated cor- 
rectly," but deeply regrets that it has these manifest im- 
perfections, although they do not demonstrate anything 
beyond man's weakness. This is what we have tried all 
along to say, that the only conviction that has ever seized 
us in the reading of the book is that it is the product, 
not of God's wisdom, but of man's weakness. Smith 
includes other church works as also being faulty, but we 
must await the production of any book anywhere or of 
any title that for faultiness is comparable to the Book of 
Mormon. Their works are not so sadly lacking to-day- 
for the simple reason that among them they have men 
who, writing as men unaided by a "Urim and Thum- 
mim," can produce works more nearly perfect than could 



"Two Thousand Changes in the Book of Mormon," p. 87. 



70 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

God, though he provided an "interpreter," but it was 
used by a man who was known to be illiterate. And one 
can but wonder, if what we have seen is a demonstration 
of "man's weakness," then, where in all the book is the 
manifestation of God's wisdom? And we humbly sub- 
mit the suggestion that the "man" who was weak, was 
this man Smith. 

To what degree this man Smith is accountable for 
the errors that may be in the book is a disputed question. 
Elder W. W. Blair thinks it wrong to hold a translator 
responsible for any errors that may be in the book; that 
is, a translator is not responsible for the truth or falsity 
of the thing which he translates, in this instance, no more 
than that of the Pope being held responsible for the 
truth or falsity of the alleged facts of the Odyssey, or 
the translators of the Bible for the alleged facts with 
which they deal. Smith, he thinks, should be held ac- 
countable only for the faithfulness with which he per- 
formed the work of translation. That is the very thing 
that we are after. We are finding fault with the work 
when done, and we maintain that such was its character, 
when finished, as to show that, even by the aid of the 
"Urim and Thummim," the Lord was woefully crippled 
by the poor selection of a man to handle the "inter- 
preter." Without the "Urim and Thummim," Smith was 
able in later years to surpass his earlier effort. 

The usual subterfuge of the Saints at this point is to 
lay the blame on the printer. But the printer holds that 
he was not allowed to make any corrections, and that 
furthermore Cowdery was the proofreader. This, then, 
throws the fault over to Cowdery, and since he was the 
"printer" when the second edition was run off in 1837, 
and it was an improvement over the first edition, it 
shows that Cowdery was learning some as the years 



BOOK OF MORMON: ITS TRANSLATION 7z 

were passing. But even this course is not open to the 
Saints, for when Cowdery corrected the second edition 
he did it by the aid of the original manuscript, so it is 
claimed, and we insist that he must then have had the 
original manuscript at the time that he read the proof 
for the first edition. It is claimed by Smith, and by the 
Smiths, that so hotly was the "prophet" pursued by per- 
secution of various sorts, that he had not the leisure to 
become educated. This is the plea that is made for 
him when as an "illiterate" man he produced that other 
"marvelous work and a wonder," the "Inspired Transla- 
tion of the Scriptures." If, then, by that time, he had 
not had the time to become educated for that work, and 
was still illiterate, and yet, with all his illiteracy, he was 
able to help Cowdery to correct the second edition, what 
was to hinder him to proofread the first when he had 
with him every essential help then that he had later? 
The fact is, our contention stands that the book was 
never more nearly perfect than the literary attainment? 
of its producers would allow at any given time that they 
worked with it, and it was never poorer than when it 
came fresh from the miraculous "Urim and Thummim." 
Let the reader pause a moment to consider what re- 
markable perversity that printer had when, for instance, 
he persisted in using the word "which" for the word 
"who" almost, if not quite, seven hundred times. That 
he should make a mistake in handling the word for a few 
times, is conceivable ; but that he should so persistently 
cling to this peculiar error for the larger number of 
times, and all this eluding the "scholarly" Cowdery, is 
past belief. As to Joseph Smith falling in with the ver- 
nacular of the local community in which the book ap- 
peared, is from the very nature of the question ruled 
out of consideration. Joseph Smith had nothing to do- 



7 2 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

with it; he only wrote the English that appeared, and 
which, when ' it had been written correctly, would dis- 
appear, and the next word or words would take its place. 
God was not a Yankee. The doctrine of his omnipres- 
ence might allow him to have a residenceship in New 
York, but that when he intended to give to the world 
"the fulness of the everlasting gospel," it is a libel on 
God to make of him the "country Jake" that this "mar- 
velous work and a wonder" makes him to be. Common 
sense would commend the judgment that the Book of 
Mormon is just such a product as unaided men with 
only a smattering of English could produce. 

Further, there are some corrections made in the book 
that are exactly the reverse of the statements which first 
appeared. If God gave the first, then the last is not 
true ; and if the last is true, then God did not give the 
first. Either horn of the dilemma is fatal to an accept- 
ance of the inspiration of the book. If the printer is 
responsible for the errors, then upon what ground can 
we explain his course of making fewer errors in those 
parts of the Book of Mormon that conform to the 
phraseology of the King James translation of the Bible? 
The belief some way fixes itself in one's mind that 
Joseph occasionally got hold of a King James version 
of the Bible instead of the "plates." Oh, Mormonism ! 
To what a sad fate thou hast come ! For seven brief 
years "the fulness of the everlasting gospel" was thine, 
in all its sweet simplicity, just as it issued from the 
"Urim and Thummim" ! But now the splendid work of 
thy prophet hath been polluted by the touch of the 
"revisers" ! The Mountain hath travailed, and hath 
brought forth a Mouse! 



HEBREW PROPHECY 73 



CHAPTER V. 
The Book of Mormon and Hebrew Prophecy. 

If there is one preserve more than another in which 
the Mormon delights to disport himself, and over which 
he intrepidly moves, it is on the field of Hebrew proph- 
ecy, or prophecies, which establish for him, as he avers, 
and doubtless believes, what he is pleased to call his 
"latter-day work." Together with this, indeed indissolu- 
bly united to this work, is the testimony that establishes 
the claims of the Book of Mormon as being the subject 
of Hebrew prophecy. He holds this to be the very thing 
which "Moses and the prophets" wrote and spoke, and 
of course makes his appeal to them for proof. One of 
them waxes exceedingly bold as he considerately says : 
"If I can not prove from the prophecies of the Bible 
that such a book and such a work were to come forth 
in the latter days, in the manner and at the time of the 
coming forth of this work, I shall not ask you to accept 
it." 1 

It would seriously burden the pages of this book and 
tax the patience of the reader did we produce in full 
every text that is used ; it is not necessary to do this, and 
at the same time accomplish the end that we have in 
view in this chapter. We can with greater profit select 
what are the main texts upon which full reliance is 
placed, and if in the course of our investigation, since 
the Mormon argument goes through from beginning to 
end like the several links of a chain, destroy any of those 
links, it will show that we have demonstrated the insuf- 



1 Smith's "Book of Mormon Vindicated," p. i: 



74 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

ficiency of their proof. The task is not so difficult as to 
embarrass us. 

To free ourselves from the unreasonable charge that 
we are dodging the issue by refusing to consider any 
part of it, we shall place in order what we understand 
to be their contention. The several propositions that the 
Mormon does and must defend are : 

( i) God will literally gather Israel, the seed of Jacob, 
from all the nations unto their own land, which God 
gave their fathers by promise. 

(2) He will first lift up an ensign on the mountains 
for the nations, set up a standard of the people, and set 
a sign among them. He will then immediately commis- 
sion officers and send them to the nations, bearing this 
ensign, to declare his glory among the Gentiles, and hunt 
out Israel, and bring them to their own land for an offer- 
ing unto the Lord. 

(3) This ensign, standard and sign consists of a 
book, a record of the tribe of Joseph, taken by the Lord, 
and put with the Bible, literally joined with it. 

(4) That the record of Joseph is to come out of the 
earth in America, because Ephraim's seed dwells there. 

(5) America is the promised land to Joseph, and God 
brought a remnant of people to possess it. 

(6) God will make use of men as instruments to 
bring this book forth. 

(7) This generation is the time when the gathering 
is to take place, consequently the time when the book is 
to come forth. 

(8) The Book of Mormon is this book, and the 
elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 
Saints are the officers commissioned to bear this ensign 
to the nations, and to declare God's glory among the 
Gentiles and gather Israel. 



HEBREW PROPHECY 75 

The foregoing summary is taken from the proposi- 
tions defended by one Charles Thompson, in Batavia, 
N. Y., in 1841, which were published by him in a 
duodecimo volume, but was later suppressed by Brigham 
Young. The reason for this drastic treatment I have not 
been able to discover. While in my judgment it offers 
the most plausible defense that any Mormon has ever 
given the question, yet because it is now disavowed, for 
whatever reason, we should take what is accepted by 
them as being in force now. However, if any of my 
readers may be able to discover anything which from the 
Mormon standpoint is heterodox in Thompson's book, 
he may use this information for what it is worth, as 
marking the change of front that these people have made 
in the three-quarters of a century in which they have 
been in existence. That Thompson correctly set forth 
the teachings of Mormonism then is unquestionably true, 
however defective his utterances may now be deemed. 

But the church stands by Pratt in his "Voice of 
Warning," so we shall allow him to define the issue. He 
says : "We shall attempt to prove, first, that America is 
a promised land to the seed of Joseph ; second, that the 
Lord promised to reveal to them his truth as well as to 
the Jews ; and, third, that their record was to come forth 
and be united with the record of the Jews in time for 
the restoration of Israel in the last days." 1 

Should it transpire that Pratt succeeds in this under- 
taking, there will be some justification of his claim for 
the inspiration and authoritativeness of the Book of 
Mormon ; but, failing in this, the issue for the Mormon 
is lost. It were a tedious undertaking to write out the 
Scriptures that he uses, but if the reader will by the aid 



*p. 76. 



7 6 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

of the Bible verify the references, quite as much will be 
gained, while we give our attention to recording the 
results of Pratt's reflections. Using the forty-eighth 
chapter of Genesis, together with the forty-ninth, he 
attempts the proof of his first proposition; viz.: That 
America is the promised land of the seed of Joseph, and 
the several steps by which he reaches this conclusion are x 
first, Ephraim was to grow into a multitude of nations 
in the midst of the earth; second, Joseph was greatly 
to be blessed in a large inheritance, as far off as America ; 
and, third, that this was on the west of Egypt, or Jeru- 
salem. And for the reason that he can discover no other 
place where these Scriptures can apply, they must apply 
to America. 

In his second proposition, that the Lord had promised 
to reveal himself to them (the descendants of Joseph) 
as well as to the Jews, he says: "Speaking of Ephraim, 
he says by the spirit of prophecy: T have written unto 
him the things of my law, but they were counted as a 
strange thing.' This is proof positive and needs no com- 
ment, that the great truths of heaven were revealed unto 
Ephraim as a strange thing." 2 

In his third proposition, that their record was to come 
forth, he primarily makes his appeal to Ezekiel $*], the 
one known as "the stick of Ephraim chapter." Accord- 
ing to his use of this chapter, it teaches that God is going 
to take the Book of Mormon, "the stick of Joseph, which 
is in the hands of Ephraim," and will join it to the 
"stick of Judah," which is the Old Testament, and com- 
bining the two will make of them one book, so that 
finally "it will come to pass" that the Book of Mormon 
will be one in authority with the Old Testament Scrip- 



Hbid, p. 77. 

2 "Voice of Warning," p. yy. 



HEBREW PROPHECY ft 

tures. That we may further satisfy ourselves that this 
conclusion is not alone Pratt's, but is accepted by the 
Saints generally, we will take the testimony of another, 
wherein he says : "The two sticks are to be one in the 
hand of the Lord, one in their testimony, one in their 
teaching, one in doctrine." 

The foregoing, we believe, fairly presents both the 
line of proof used by the Saints and the conclusions 
which they have reached. Certainly we are not con- 
scious of having perverted either the one or the other, 
aiming, instead, to discover exactly what they teach 
and upon what premises they base their argument. It 
is now in order to make an examination of the alleged 
proof. 

Manasseh and Ephraim were the sons of Joseph. 
Manasseh was the first-born, and when brought to the 
patriarch Israel for his blessing, by right of primogeni- 
ture, should have received the choice blessing, but for 
some reason the patriarch saw fit to bestow this upon 
Ephraim. While he said Manasseh should become great, 
he said that Ephraim should be the greater. We need 
not pause to consider the meaning of that phrase, "the 
utmost bound of the everlasting hills," for the simple 
reason that it is immaterial to the force of the objection 
we are recording. The correctness of the Saints' con- 
tention could be granted, and then it would be incumbent 
upon them to show, if this describes America, that the 
Ephraimites ever came to this land. How effectually 
either Ephraim or Manasseh ever wrought out the pro- 
gram of the patriarch we do not know ; but we do know 
this, that whatever was the glory that accrued to either 
was later changed to Judah. "Moreover he refused the 
tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but 
chose the tribe of Judah, the mount of Zion which he 



78 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

loved." 1 It was from the tribe of Judah whence the 
Lord came, showing that it was finally the purpose of 
God to bless not alone Israel, but the world, through 
Christ, that the promises of God might be yea and amen 
in Christ Jesus. 

As to the Scripture quoted by Pratt from the prophet 
Hosea, where that prophet said that "I have written unto 
him the things of my law, but they were counted as a 
strange thing," there arises a harder problem for them 
to solve. The prophet Hosea, according to the best 
chronology which we have been able to find, wrote dur- 
ing the reign of Hezekiah, about J22 B. C, or approxi- 
mately a period of 122 years before the Nephite colony 
left Jerusalem. If this was the "stick of Ephraim," it 
becomes exceedingly difficult for the Mormon to find any 
part of God's words to Ephraim in the Book of Mormon. 
The Jaredites had already been on this continent, from a 
time before even Joseph was born, hence that portion of 
the Book of Mormon is eliminated. And inasmuch as 
that portion which opens the Book of Mormon follows 
these people historically from the year 600 B. C, and 
not earlier, it follows that that part does not contain any 
part of the "stick of Ephraim." In other words, if the 
Book of Mormon is the "stick of Ephraim," then any- 
thing that God spoke to Ephraim earlier, and to which 
the prophet Hosea alluded, can not be the Book of Mor- 
mon. Hence the argument of Pratt and others is non 
sequitur and proves nothing. 

We propose now to drive a peg that the Mormons 
can not pull with their teeth. The American Indians are 
the Lamanites, so the argument runs. The Lamanites 
came from those people who migrated in the year 600 



iPs. 78: 67, 68. 



HEBREW PROPHECY 79 

B. C, coming from Jerusalem. The Book of Mormon is 
the "stick of Ephraim," hence, if belonging to Ephraim, 
and Ephraim is a part of that multitude of nations in the 
midst of the earth, and this is America, because it can 
not mean anything else, as Pratt contended, then Ephraim 
is the progenitor of the people who came in that Jewish 
colony. But we read: "I am Amulek; I am the son of 
Giddonah, who was the son of Ishmael, who was the son 
of Aminadi ; . . . and Aminadi was a descendant of 
Nephi, who was a son of Lehi, who came out of the land 
of Jerusalem, who was a descendant of Manasseh, who 
was the son of Joseph, who was sold into Egypt by the 
hands of his brethren." 1 Hence the Book of Mor- 
mon teaches that these people were Manassehites instead 
of Ephraimites. It is the merest begging of the ques- 
tion, and is not proof, for the Mormons to suggest, as 
Blair has suggested, that possibly Zoram or Ishmael 
were Ephraimites. That is not proof, and until the Mor- 
mon can get proof that proves he will be building on the 
sand of assumption. 2 We could concede all that the 



1 "Book of Alma," 10:2, 3. 

2 "How can we prove that Ishmael was a descendant of Ephraim? — 
H. E. S., Lacrosse, Wis. 

"That part of the manuscript of the Book of Mormon which was lost 
through Martin Harris, gave Ephraim as the ancestor of Ishmael." 

The above query and reply" are taken from the Liahona, a weekly Mor- 
mon publication printed at Independence, Mo., under date of May 18, 1907. 

"While I am aware that the colony that last inhabited this continent 
before it was discovered by Columbus were of the tribe of Joseph, through 
Lehi, who was a descendant of Manassa, and Ishmael, who was a de- 
scendant of Ephraim, yet in explaining these facts to investigators would 
I be justified in calling them a colony of Jews? — Elder D. N. L. 

"The foregoing inquiry is submitted by a missionary. There are three 
appellations that are given the colony which was led by Lehi from Jerusalem 
to South America, and their descendants, with all propriety. They are 
called Jews, because that is a name given to the inhabitants of Jerusalem 
at the time the colony left that city. They are called descendants of Joseph, 
because they were such literally. They are also spoken of as Ephraim, 
because of Ishmael, whose daughters were the wives of the four sons of 
Lehi, and who was a descendant of Ephraim. Hence, Lehi's colony and 



80 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Mormon has claimed as to what God intended to do 
through Ephraim, but until he can connect the Ephraim- 
ites with this continent, the book may safely be rejected 
for the want of proof. Which goes to show that if the 
Mormons with their three-quarters of a century in their 
effort have been so far unable to establish this connec- 
tion, then it is certainly a difficult proposition to prove 
that the Book of Mormon is a child of Hebrew prophecy. 
It rather looks to be the work of an illiterate who, de- 
signing to give Scriptural sanction to his work, has left 
it weak at a point that destroys credence in his story. 

Right here, for the very cogent reason that the Saints 
have failed in establishing their affirmative, the question 
might be dropped, and we might go on our way assured 
that their argument has suffered an irreparable fracture, 
except that they would declare that there are too many 
other related Scriptures to allow their structure to be 
thus summarily crushed to the ground. Some others of 
these may be considered later, but we must insist that 
until now their building has been razed. So long as the 
Book teaches that the Nephites, and consequently La- 
manites, were of the tribe of Manasseh, so long is it 
absolutely impossible to show that the Book of Mormon 
is "the stick of Ephraim." If the American Indians are 
the Lamanites, and the Lamanites are Manassehites, and 
this the Book of Mormon teaches, then it is utterly 



their descendants may be called either Jews or descendants of Joseph or 
descendants of Ephraim with equal propriety." 

This correspondence is likewise taken from the Liahona, but from a 
one-week-later date. It shows that the question is troubling even some of 
their "missionaries," and at the last they fall back on the subterfuge that 
this genealogy was contained in the 116 lost pages. The confidence of the 
Brighamites in announcing this doctrine is in striking contrast to the 
conjecture of the Josephites, that possibly Zoram or Ishmael were 
Ephraimites. That Joseph Smith, Jr., is of the tribe of Ephraim remains 
to be proved. 



HEBREW PROPHECY 81 

absurd to claim that they are Ephraimites. And until 
this can be done, in vain is the assertion that the "stick 
of Joseph in the hand of Ephraim" has been joined to 
the "stick of Judah." It is not incumbent on us to give 
an exegesis of these Scriptures, nor to have a war of 
words with the Mormons that what they claim is what 
God intended should be ; we are concerned in showing 
that if these were God's plans, they have miscarried; he 
took hold of the wrong "stick." 

Another stronghold of the Mormons in their asserted 
proof of the Book of Mormon is the twenty-ninth chap- 
ter of Isaiah. It is in this chapter that excuse is found 
for the incident of Professor Anthon, which, because of 
the importance assigned it by Mormon authorities, re- 
quires some slight attention at our hands. It was doubt- 
less a matter of great surprise to this learned man to 
discover that he had been made at once the subject and 
object of Hebrew prophecy; nevertheless, this is the 
averment. 

The verses of Scripture which are meant to refer to 
Prof. Charles Anthon are Isa. 29: 11, 12: 

And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of 
a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, 
saying, Read this, I pray thee ; and he saith, I cannot, for it is 
sealed ; and the book is delivered to him that is not learned, 
saying, Read this, I pray thee : and he saith, I am not learned. 

Pratt, in his "Voice of Warning," using Joseph's 
autobiography as the source of his information, tells us 
that when Martin Harris presented the characters to 
Professor Anthon, that he said that the translation was 
correct, more so than any he had before seen translated 
from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which 
were not yet translated, and he said that they were 
Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyrian and Arabic, and he said 



82 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

they were true characters. He gave me a certificate 
certifying to the people of Palmyra that they were true 
characters, and that the translation of such of them as 
had been translated was also correct. I took the cer- 
tificate and put it into my pocket, and was just leaving 
the house, when Mr. Anthon called me back and asked 
me how the young man found out that there were plates 
in the place where he found them. I answered that an 
angel of God had revealed it unto him. He then said to 
me, "Let me see that certificate." I accordingly took it out 
of my pocket and gave it to him, when he took it and 
tore it to pieces, saying that there was no such thing as 
the ministering of angels, and that if I would bring the 
plates to him he would translate them. I informed him 
that part of the plates were sealed, and that I was for- 
bidden to bring them. He replied, "I can not read a 
sealed book." I left him and went to Dr. Mitchell, who 
sanctioned what Professor Anthon had said respecting 
both the characters and the translation. 1 

This is the parallel that the Mormons seek to work 
out connecting Professor Anthon with the prophecy in 
Isaiah. That Martin Harris made such a visit is very 
reliably determined, as shown both by the claims of the 
Mormons and the letter which Professor Anthon wrote 
to E. D. Howe in 1834. In that letter, however, Anthon's 
account of the incident differs from the report that the 
Saints put forth. The Professor at first thought that it 
was a hoax — that some one was trying to perpetrate a 
practical joke on him — but later discovered that Harris 
was in earnest. Anthon claims to have urged Harris to 
abandon the enterprise, insisting that it was but a scheme 
to get his money from him. Professor Anthon declares 



14< Voice of Warning," pp. 74, 75. 



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HEBREW PROPHECY 83 

that he refused to give any opinion in writing, Harris 
taking with him the paper which he had brought con- 
taining the "singular scrawl." Later, Harris came back, 
but bringing with him this time a book and offered it for 
sale. The purchase was declined, as was also the privi- 
lege of leaving the book for examination. Anthon fur- 
ther sought to dissuade Harris from continuing with the 
promoters of the scheme, and suggested that Harris pro- 
cure the services of a magistrate to examine the trunk in 
which Smith was said to have kept the plates and spec- 
tacles. Harris feared the curse of God in following such 
a course, whereupon the Professor volunteered his serv- 
ices, expressing a willingness to assume- all risk. And 
here the incident closed. 

There is strong reason to believe that Harris was not 
so eminently successful in his New York trip as Smith's 
glowing account of the affair would imply. For it was 
after this, and not before, that Harris got the 116 pages 
of manuscript of the Book of Mormon which he lost 
later. Further, the only direct testimony which the world 
has of the event is that which was given by Professor 
Anthon. The Saints' version of the affair did not appear 
until May 2, 1842, and was made then, not by Martin 
Harris, but by Joseph Smith. The motive for giving it 
currency at even that late date was to give credence to 
the claim that was being made that the Book of Mormon 
was a child of Hebrew prophecy, but Harris remained as 
silent as the grave, not alone on this question, but on the 
"reaffirmation" as well. If such a statement as that 
which is attributed to Martin Harris on either of these 
points could have been produced, the world would have 
been in possession of it long ago ; and the fact that it has 
not appeared is very good reason for believing that the 
Mormon position is built upon the unsupported, second- 



84 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

hand account by the instigator of the whole fraud, Joseph 
Smith, Jr. 

Even if the Smith account is actually true, it does 
not fulfill the prediction of Isaiah. Instead of being 
unable to read the words, he was able not only to read 
them, but translate them also, thus verifying Smith's 
translation of them. And if Anthon was able to trans- 
late them and verify Smith's translation of the same, it 
was the merest hocus-pocus that the Lord practiced on 
Smith in making him believe that for their translation 
there was needed a Urim and Thummim. And if Anthon 
did not do this — that is, so far decipher che plates as to 
be able to verify Smith's translation of them — then 
Smith lied, or Harris lied to Smith, and in either case 
the assertion is valueless to prove anything. And, of 
course, if he did read them, and was at the same time 
the object of Isaiah's prophecy, then Isaiah was a false 
prophet, for he predicted that the learned man should 
be unable to read them, which makes it a matter of 
indifference whether the book was mentioned in Hebrew 
prophecy at all. 

The Mormons seek to discredit the testimony of Pro- 
fessor Anthon on the ground that it comes by the way 
of E. D. Howe. Let it go at that, and still the Mormons 
are unable to prove their case, for the evidence which 
they present would not stand the test in any competent 
court. For what they give is hearsay by one of the 
parties to the fraud, and such as they have stands in 
direct contradiction to their main contention that the 
book is the subject of prophecy. Further, as Howe was 
eager to give this information to the world, and in his 
work, "Mormonism Unveiled," did give it to the world 
as early as 1834, about eight years before Joseph Smith 
made his reply in print, it is strange that Smith did not 



HEBREW PROPHECY 85 

reply earlier. Further, if they had reason to believe at 
the time of its appearance in Howe's book, that the letter 
was not genuine which he represented to have received 
from Anthon, they could have communicated directly 
with Anthon at any time for more than thirty years, for 
the Professor did not die till 1867. The circumstantial 
evidence is favorable to Howe's claim, that Anthon 
actually said what he is, in that letter, represented to 
have said. Further and finally, Harris lived for almost 
fifty years after Howe's book appeared ; during any time 
intervening the Mormons could have fortified their posi- 
tion by the solemn asseveration of Martin Harris. In- 
stead, we have this anomaly, that this man, who was one 
of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, left the church 
with nothing but denunciation for Smith, and died at 
last outside the pale of the Mormon organization. As, 
when we made use of Ezekiel 37, we denied that it was 
necessary for us to give an exegesis of that Scripture, 
so in this case we can at once dismiss the case that the 
Mormons seek to make out of the twenty-ninth chapter 
of Isaiah. Their testimony is only hearsay, repeated by 
a man who was deeply interested in the fraud, and for 
that reason proves nothing. Their position is not weii 
taken, and their affirmative fails through lack of proof. 
Until it can be, and is proved to be, the child of Hebrew 
prophecy, we must rest in the conviction that it is a 
fabrication, with Joseph Smith, Jr., its "author and pro- 
prietor." 



86 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER VI. 
The Book of Mormon : A Modern Production. 

Elder J. R. Lambert, a superannuated Mormon apos- 
tle, claims for the Book of Mormon that it is a history 
of the aborigines of America. Elder R. Etzenhouser 
says: "The Book of Mormon is a record of God's deal- 
ings with the descendants of Joseph on this continent. 
It is therefore of equal authority with the sacred 
writings, and throws light upon doctrines, promise and 
prophecy. ... It does not in any sense supplant the Bible 
or take its place, but is a companion volume there- 
to." 1 Allowing these men to be the judges, the Book 
of Mormon is a history. 

History, in the correct sense of that word, is a prose 
narrative of past events, as probably true as the falli- 
bility of human testimony will allow. Authentic history 
is by most writers confined to a period in the past not 
exceeding four thousand years, hence as the Book of 
Mormon comes well within that period, it will, if what 
its advocates say is true, yield gracefully to any investi- 
gation that has for its end an examination of it along 
historical lines. If it can not bear this test, and if to 
any considerable degree it comes short of meeting this 
test, it can not be true, and must therefore be rejected as 
a modern fabrication. 

It is to be kept in mind that it deals with the history 
of Joseph's descendants on this continent, and it follows 
that, Joseph having been called to this land, somewhere 
in its pages should there be reason given for such a call. 



^'Palmyra to Independence," pp. 18, 19. 



A MODERN PRODUCTION 87 

In the call of Abraham, for instance, as he left Ur 
of the Chaldees, there was given a -reason for the migra- 
tion. Some such reason we should expect to find in the 
Book of Mormon for the removal of Joseph's descend- 
ants, but, unless it is contained in the 116 lost pages, 
the Book of Mormon fails absolutely to make known any 
such purpose. 

Over against this Mormon estimate of the book we 
oppose an opinion that is as nearly contradictory to these 
claims as can well be stated. We affirm of it that it is a 
modern production by one man, except as he was influ- 
enced by his immediate associates, and that it is not the 
history of the people on this or any other continent; that 
it was not written by a succession of prophets and in- 
spired men extending over a period of one thousand 
years, but is instead the product of a single brain. 

We are, therefore, hedged in to the examination of 
the book on these two grounds : It is what its friends 
claim it to be, a real history of a real people, a genuine 
historical record of the aborigines of this continent, and 
was written by a succession of prophets and wise men 
who once lived on the Western continent, or it is of 
modern origin, a product modernly produced by a single 
mind, except as that mind had been influenced by the 
association with other minds during the days of its com- 
position. If it is a real history of a real people, it will 
be found to agree with every known and discoverable 
fact in every essential particular. Climatic, geograph- 
ical, topographical, ethnological, philological, religious 
and social facts, known or discovered, must be in agree- 
ment with the claims of the book. That the Bible has 
stood this test, with a record so faithful that the Holy 
Land has for years been known as the "Fifth Gospel," 
and that in none of its essential facts has it been con- 



88 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

tradicted by modern research, is known to all who lay 
claim to even a smattering of the history and the archae- 
ology of the Bible and Bible times. No less true should 
the Book of Mormon be found. And if it is lacking in 
these particulars, its boasted claims are all for nothing. 
Soon after the appearance of the Book of Mormon, 
Alexander Campbell, himself a leader of a religious 
body, whose rise is only a few years earlier than Mor- 
monism, made a review of the Book of Mormon. In 
effect he said as follows : 

First, Smith, its real author, as ignorant and impudent a 
knave as ever wrote a book, betrays the cloven foot upon a 
false fact, or pretended fact, which makes God a liar. It is this : 
With the Jews, God made a covenant at Mount Sinai, and insti- 
tuted a priesthood and an high priesthood. The priesthood he 
gave to the tribe of Levi, and the high priesthood to Aaron and 
his sons, for an everlasting priesthood. He separated Levi, and 
covenanted to give him this office irrevocably, while ever the 
temple stood, or till Messiah came. "Then," says God, "Moses 
shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall wait on their 
priest's office, and the stranger [the person of another family] 
who cometh nigh shall be put to death" (Num. 3:10). 'And 
the priests, and the sons of Levi, shall come near ; for them the 
Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in 
the name of the Lord ; and by their word shall every controversy 
and every stroke be tried" (Deut. 21:5). Korah, Dathan and 
Abiram, with two hundred and fifty men of renown, rebelled 
against a part of the institution of the priesthood, and the Lord 
destroyed them in the presence of the congregation. This was 
ever a memorial that no stranger invade any part of the office 
of the priesthood. Fourteen thousand and seven hundred people 
were destroyed for murmuring against this memorial. 

In the eighteenth chapter of Numbers, the Levites are again 
given to Aaron, and the priesthood confirmed with this threat: 
"The, stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death." "Even 
Jesus," said Paul, "were he on earth, could not be a priest ; for 
he was of a tribe concerning which Moses spake nothing con- 
cerning the priesthood" (Heb. 7:13). So irrevocable was the 



A MODERN PRODUCTION 89 

gr2nt of the priesthood to Levi, and the high priesthood to 
Aaron, that no stranger dare approach the altar of God which 
Moses established. Hence, Jesus himself was excluded from 
officiating as a priest on earth according to the law. 

This Joseph Smith overlooked in his impious fraud, and 
makes his hero spring from Joseph. And just as soon as his 
sons return with the roll of his lineage ascertaining that he was 
of the tribe of Joseph, he and his sons acceptably "offer sacrifices 
and burnt offerings to the Lord." Nephi becomes chief artificer, 
shipbuilder and mariner ; was scribe, prophet, priest and king to 
his own people, and consecrated Jacob and Joseph, the sons of 
his father, priests of God and teachers, almost six hundred years 
before the fullness of times of the Jewish economy was com- 
pleted. Nephi represents himself withal as "under the law of 
Moses." They built a new temple in the new world, and in fifty- 
five years after they leave Jerusalem make a new priesthood 
which God approbates. A high priest is also consecrated, and 
yet they are all the while teaching the law of Moses, and exhort- 
ing the people to keep it. 

Thus God is represented as instituting, approbating and bless- 
ing a new priesthood from the tribe of Joseph, concerning which 
Moses gave no commandment concerning the priesthood. Al- 
though God had promised in the law of Moses that if any man 
not of the tribe and family of Levi and Aaron, should approach 
the office of priest, he would surely die, he is represented as 
blessing, approbating and sustaining another family in this appro- 
priated office. The God of Abraham, or Joseph Smith, must be a 
liar! And who will hesitate to pronounce him an impostor? 
This lie runs through the records for the first six hundred years 
of his story. 1 

The foregoing quotation, from the pen of this very 
competent writer and theologian, has been an aside to 
our main purpose, but it shows that the tenor of the 
Book of Mormon is such as to condemn it not alone on 
every page, but in its entirety. We had in mind, how- 
ever, the more delightful task of following these myth- 
ical people from their abode in Jerusalem to their new 

^Millennial Harbinger, 1831. 



90 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

liome on this continent. To do this, we make our appeal 
to the book itself for the statements of its alleged facts. 

As we glean from the early pages of the narrative, 
these travelers, six in number (Lehi, Nephi, Sariah, 
Laman, Lemuel and Sam), came first to the shore of the 
Red Sea, or, to be more exact, "down by the borders 
near the shore of the Red Sea," and they pitched their 
"tent in a valley beside a river of water." "And it came 
to pass that he built an altar of stones, and he made an 
offering unto the Lord, and gave thanks unto the Lord 
our God. And it came to pass he called the name of the 
river Laman, and it emptied into the Red Sea, and the 
valley was in the borders near the mouth thereof." 

We can pass without comment that remarkable jour- 
ney which these people made from Jerusalem to the Red 
Sea, a distance approximating, if not exceeding, two 
hundred miles, on foot, carrying food and tents, and 
possibly some necessary change of clothing, and appar- 
ently in the space of three days, except as we may say 
that they allowed no grass to grow under their feet 
en route. During the sojourn at the seaside the old man 
of the crowd, Lehi, had "visions" and owned up to being 
a "visionary man." These visions were supposed to be 
prophetic of the future of these people. 

After a brief time the boys went back to Jerusalem, 
secured "records which were engraven upon plates of 
brass," and found that "they contained the five Books 
of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the 
world; and also of Adam and Eve, which were our first 
parents; and also a record of the Jews from the begin- 
ning, even down to the commencement of the reign of 
Zedekiah, king of Judah ; and also many prophecies 
which have been spoken by the mouth of the prophet 
Jeremiah." 



A MODERN PRODUCTION 91 

A full record appears to have been made of the hap- 
penings as well as of the visions of these people while 
they were migrating, but for some reason this record 
was put on two sets of plates, one "for the more part of 
the ministry," and the other "for the more part of the 
reign of kings." We have not discovered from which 
set the Book of Mormon was translated. 

During the stay of the six at the Red Sea, one man, 
Zoram by name, was added to the company, and finally 
one, Ishmael by name, and his family of five daughters. 
These five women sufficed to supply the four sons of 
Lehi and the servant Zoram each with a wife. They 
then traveled for a space of four days in a "south- 
southeast direction," which of course allowed them to 
skirt along the shore of the Red Sea. Then they again 
"did travel for a space of many days," in the same direc- 
tion, which of course carried them yet farther along the 
shore of the same sea. Then "it came to pass that we 
did again take our journey, traveling nearly in the same 
course as in the beginning." This statement is just a 
little bewildering, for the reason that in the beginning 
they traveled in a southwesterly direction in going from 
Jerusalem to the Red Sea. If by "the beginning" the 
"author and proprietor" of the Book of Mormon means 
when they first began to follow the coastline of the Red 
Sea, and aims to say that they continued this course, 
then it is clear that they went still further down the 
coastline. It was at this geographical point that they 
had their first death in the person of Ishmael. 1 

There is but little light that we can throw upon the 
exact route taken by these travelers, for the simple 
reason that the Mormon has no more light en these 



^he entire account of these travels is found in 1 Nephi. 



9 2 MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

geographical questions than have we. But from this 
point on the shore of the Red Sea, wherever that spot 
may be, "it came to pass we did again take our journey 
in the wilderness ; and we did travel nearly eastward, 
from that time forth. And we did travel and wade 
through much affliction in the wilderness ; and our 
women did bear children in the wilderness. . . . And we 
did sojourn for the space of many years, yea, even eight 
years in the wilderness. . . . And we did come to the 
land which we called Bountiful, because of much fruit, 
and also of wild honey; and all these things were pre- 
pared of the Lord that we might not perish. And we 
beheld the sea which we called Irreantum, which being 
interpreted is many waters." 

Just in whose language this sea was called Irreantum, 
Nephi does not say. If it was his own, then what was 
the occasion of telling the people the meaning of the 
word, when this was the very word that they used when 
they said "many waters"? Or did the Urim and Thum- 
mim tell Smith that this was the meaning and he had 
Cowdery to make note of it? Was this in the Hebrew 
language or in the Reformed Egyptian, and which one 
did Nephi speak, and in which one did he write, and 
from what language did he quote when he used the word 
"Irreantum"? There is not a Mormon on this side of 
heaven that can tell. Time after time the several writers 
of the Book of Mormon are guilty of the same offense. 
They write as if they were addressing a people not 
familiar with the terms that the writers employ. It is a 
safe guess that the phrase is one that is borrowed from 
the King James translation of the Bible, and while neces- 
sary to the enlightenment of the people for whom these 
words were first written, the conditions are not paralleled 
in the Book of Mormon. It is merely an affectation, 



A MODERN PRODUCTION 93 

having as its purpose the demonstration of kinship be- 
tween the Book of Mormon and the Bible. 

Having reached the sea of Irreantum, a command of 
the Lord took Nephi up into a mountain, for "the voice 
of the Lord came unto me, saying, Arise, and get thee 
up into the mountain." When he had reached his desti- 
nation, the Lord told him to build a ship. At once he 
inquired for "ore to molten," and the Lord showed him 
where to get it. "And it came to pass that I did make 
tools of the ore which I did molten out of the rock." 
When his brethren saw what was now to be undertaken, 
they began to murmur and to discourage the enterprise 
generally. This called forth a severe reprimand from 
Nephi, and concluded with a miracle. So mighty was 
his power as he spoke against his brethren that, had he 
used all of it, it would have caused his brothers to 
"wither." As it was, "It came to pass that the Lord said 
unto me, Stretch forth thy hand, and they shall not 
wither before thee, but I will shock them, saith the 
Lord." Then "the Lord did shake them, even according 
to the word which he had spoken." This cured the 
rebellion, for "it came to pass that they did worship the 
Lord, and did go forth with me. And we did work 
timbers of curious workmanship," and so the ship was 
built. 

Upon the vessel's completion, it was stowed with such 
food as was needed for the journey by sea, and consisted 
of "fruits and meats from the wilderness," and with this 
provision the trip was undertaken. They had not gone 
far, however, until the spirit of revelry seized many 
members of that company, and, as was to be expected, 
Nephi protested against it. The "compass" refused to 
work, and they knew not whither to go. To make mat- 
ters worse, a great storm swept the sea, "y ea > a great 



94' MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the 
waters many days," and for four days the storm raged 
in its fury. Stricken with grief, the aged parents were 
laid low, "even upon their sick-beds," and were "brought 
near even to be carried out of this time to meet their 
God; yea, their gray hairs were about to be brought 
down to lie low in the dust; yea, even they were near to 
be cast into a zvatery grave/' 

But behind the clouds the sun still shone, and the 
storm having passed and the vessel was still intact, Nephi 
seized the helm and the company made its way for "the 
promised land." "And it came to pass, that after we had 
sailed for the space of many days, we did arrive at the 
promised land. And we went forth upon that land and 
did pitch our tents, and we did call it the promised land." 
Thus, in the space of forty-three words, there is told us 
all that is known of that remarkable journey by sea. And 
upon such meager data does the Mormon build his 
theory that these people came to the American shores. 
But which way did they come? Did the trip comprise 
approximately four thousand five hundred miles, or did 
they take the longer journey of approximately sixteen 
thousand miles? The fact is, there is not an intelligent 
Mormon who can give an intelligent reply to this query, 
for the very sufficient reason that he has not the data 
upon which to arrive at any opinion on the question. 1 And 
what is more to the point, there is no proof that they ever 



1 "Eld. F. A. G., of Winnipeg, Can., asks where the colonv cf Mul"k, 
that left Jerusalem about 589 B. C, and went to South America, landed. 
Students of the Book of Mormon are of the opinion that Mulek's 
colony landed at some point on the northern coast of South America, in 
what is now Venezuela" (The Lialiona "Question-book," May 18, 1907). 
This question is here given to show that some Mormons are interested 
in the geography of the book, and to show that the time is at hand when 
it will require more than an offhand editorial statement to satisfy these 
investigators. 



A MODERN PRODUCTION 95 

landed on this continent at all. The specious reasoning of 
Orson Pratt is the ground of the Mormons' hope, and be- 
fore we are through with him, we shall demonstrate, be- 
yond peradventure, that he deliberately falsified the little 
information that he derived from Stephens and Cather- 
wood. There we shall allow them to rest for a season. 
According to the Book of Mormon, we have sub- 
stantially given in its own words the description of the 
journey of those Israelites from Jerusalem to America. 
We do not know at what point they halted upon their 
first coming to the Red Sea, except that it was by a river 
that emptied into the Red Sea. Making allowance for 
those journeys which they later took in that "south-south- 
east" direction, and keeping in mind that when they 
finally started across Arabia that they went nearly east- 
ward, we infer that they were in that part of Arabia 
known as the Hejaz, situated between twenty-eight de- 
grees and twenty-one degrees north latitude, along the 
shore of the Red Sea. Of this territory, Prof. W. 
Gifford Palgrave says : 

The surface is with few exceptions barren ; stony to the 
north, sandy to the east and south ; what little irrigation it pos- 
sesses is wholly from wells, deep sunk and brackish. Taking it 
as a whole, the Hejaz is, with the exception of the actual and 
recognized desert alone, the most hopelessly sterile in the whole 
Arabian peninsula. 1 

If, however, because of the vagueness of the Book's 
utterances, the apologist for it seeks to drive us further 
southward, and we enter that territory known as Yemen, 
we shall find the description of it, as given in the same 
article above quoted, to be as follows : 

Though the mountains are well supplied with water, no con- 
siderable rivers or streams find their way from them to the Red 



1 See article "Arabia" in Encyclopedia Britannica. 



g6 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Sea, tropical evaporation combining with the light and porous 
soil to dry up the torrent beds, nor do any natural lakes exist. 

And with this sentiment agrees every known au- 
thority. "There is no telegraph line, no newspaper, no 
railroad, and, strange to say, no river, in that vast area, 
except a few shallow beds which, during the spring, 
bring down water from the melting snow, but for nine 
months of the year are as dry as a crematory." * 

Equally difficult of solution is the problem in topog- 
raphy that the Mormon must solve when he takes the 
eastern side of Arabia, and compares it with the teach- 
ings of the Book of Mormon. Here we are not so much 
at loss to decide upon a given locality, for the Mormons 
have themselves held it to be near the head of the Persian 
Gulf, and that the Persian Gulf is the Sea of Irreantum. 
They locate the shipbuilding enterprise on the Arabian 
side of the gulf. That, of course, brings it into the 
territory of El Hasa. 

As we should have noted when considering the loca- 
tion of the Nephites on the borders of the Red Sea, it is 
hardly probable that they could have been so very far 
south, if, when they started across Arabia, traveling east- 
ward, they went, as they must have gone, north of the 
Dahna, or Great Sandy Desert. It is this that leads to 
the conviction that, if they traveled eastzvard, they must 
have come into the territory of El Hasa, and could not, 
without having changed their direction, gone as far south 
as the territory of Oman. Now that these statements 
are before us, let us compare them with the facts as they 
exist outside the book. Says Palgrave : 

Along the region of Hasa, and up to the head of the gulf, 
the coast continues low, but is enlivened by extensive green 
tracts of palm groves and other semitropical vegetation. The 



1 Wm. E. Curtis, in Chicago Record-Herald. 



A MODERN PRODUCTION 97 

mountains are situated a good way inland, and not exceeding 
three thousand feet in their extreme height, and are of Jurassic 
formation. Copious springs, some of which are hot, and others 
tepid, break out in many places at their base, but are again 
absorbed in the sand or are dissipated by field irrigation before 
reaching the sea. 1 

The ''Jurassic formation" of the mountains shows 
that there has been no recent geologic change in that ter- 
ritory, hence we are warranted in the conclusion that 
geologically this country is the same as it was in the 
year 600 B. C. The mountains are themselves barriers 
against which the desert winds blow, so that there has 
been no change of the low land to the east of the moun- 
tains. While on the Persian side of the gulf there are 
mountains not far from the coastline, on the western or 
Arabian side the mountains are back from the coast 
from seventy-five to one hundred miles, while at the 
extreme northern end of the gulf the mountains are 
inland, upwards of one hundred and seventy-five miles. 

Now, in the face of all this, we are asked to believe 
that when these people came down to the sea and called 
it Irreantum, that the voice of the Lord directed the 
hero, Nephi, to go up into the mountain to get, not alone 
his plans, but his materials, for shipbuilding, and that 
not alone did Nephi do this once, but "I, Nephi, went up 
into the mountain oft." The conclusion is so apparent 
that one shrinks from calling the reader's attention to 
something which he must have observed ere this : that it 
is a bombastic ignoramus who is responsible for the com- 
position of the book, and the errors which he commits 
are of such character as to show that he was ignorant of 
the topography of the country over which he would have 
his mythical people travel. 



1 Article "Arabia" in Encyclopedia Britannica. 



p8 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

What kind of "ore" did Nephi get for the construc- 
tion of his vessel? The Lord showed him where to get 
it, so the book says, but if he got anything on that side 
of Arabia that was suitable for shipbuilding, the supply 
was so limited that it was exhausted on the first vessel 
ever built in that yard. "In mineral products of a valuable 
description, the Arabia of our days is singularly poor." 
While myths are afloat that southern Arabia is "a land the 
hills of which are of gold and its dust silver," there is 
nowadays "nothing found to justify or even to account 
for such gorgeous statements. Agates, carnelians, onyxes, 
and, though rarely, topazes alone are found; of gold 
mines and precious ores not a trace. . . . Cinnabar and 
iron occur in the Sinaitic peninsula. Rocksalt is extracted 
from many parts of the coast range ; it exists, too, in the 
central districts, where of metals, a little iron excepted, 
not a vestige appears." Although the territory is one 
that in expanse is comparable to that portion of the 
United States lying between the Mississippi River and 
the Atlantic Ocean, yet in all that range of territory 
there has been no metal discovered that would be suit- 
able for ship construction, except in the central part and 
in the Sinaitic peninsula, either of which is hundreds of 
miles distant from the reputed spot where the vessel was 
built. And this fact goes far to strengthen the oft-re- 
peated assertion that "the author and proprietor" of the 
Book of Mormon was illiterate. Smith's reputed illit- 
eracy is confirmed, and the book is found to be false to 
the test of geographical and topographical facts. And, 
failing in this, it is not a real history, but a romance, 
clothed in language designed to deceive the very elect ; 
and, being this, it is robbed of every claim for being in- 
spired of God, to be used as "the Bible of the Western 
Continent." 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON gp 



CHAPTER VII. 
The Ethnology of the Book of Mormon. 

We shall now undertake to establish that the Book 
of Mormon is false in its ethnology, which, if done, will 
forge another link in that chain of proofs by which we 
are proving the book to be fraudulent. The Bible, in both 
the Old and New Testaments, has withstood this test. A 
blundering inaccuracy on the part of its writers would 
have destroyed its credibility centuries ago, and we can 
but feel that, if the Book of Mormon is all that is claimed 
for it, it must yield itself to such an examination as this 
chapter now undertakes. In this, and in the three suc- 
ceeding chapters, added reason will be found for believ- 
ing the book to be of modern origin. 

Every phase of Mormon history sets up the claim 
that the American Indian is of Hebrew origin. Elder 
R. Etzenhouser has made the most painstaking and con- 
cise defense of the theory of any writer whose works 
have commanded our attention. In his book, "From 
Palmyra to Independence," beginning with his chapter, 
Israel in America and running through those on Hebrew 
Relics, Customs and Languages in America, Plates and 
Records, Implements and Instruments, Dates of Amer- 
ican Antiquities and his Witnesses Testify, exhaustively 
treats these several topics, and finally concludes with this 
summary : 

The labors of the student of ethnology and aboriginal tradi- 
tions have resulted in finding statements, both of Genesis and 
the Book of Mormon, confirmed by the clearly defined traditions 
of the aborigines in Central American States. . . . And so it is 
that, as knowledge increases and the curtain of the past is lifted 



ioo M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

and the remains of the past are exposed to view, one by one 
the statements of the Book of Mormon are verified and proved 
ture. 1 

If the conclusions of this sanguine author can be es- 
tablished, it will go far toward creating a presumption 
in favor of the claims for the book; but if his conclu- 
sions are false, then the claims made for the book fail, 
for lack of support. We would like in this chapter to 
compare the claims made for the book with the latest 
conclusions of ethnology. 

The theory supported by these Book of Mormon de- 
fenders is not a new one by any means. Ever since the 
discovery of the globular form of the earth, and that the 
New World was inhabited, speculation has been rife as 
to the origin of the American Indians, and the usual 
explanation has been, as nearly as possible, on Scriptural 
grounds. "Through an unaccountable misapprehension, 
not only of the question of the origin of the Americans, 
but the manner of their separation from the rest of the 
race, together with the routes they pursued in reaching 
the New World — all were thought to be capable of solu- 
tion by the light of Scripture. The education of the 
early writers enables us to account for the intolerance 
with which they looked upon any other solution of the 
problem than that which alone would conform to the 
teachings of the church." 2 

Father Duran, a native of Mexico, as early as 1585 
expressed the belief that the natives were of foreign 
origin, concluding upon these grounds, that appeared 
good and sufficient to him, that "these natives are of the 
ten tribes of Israel that Salmanasar, King of the As- 
syrians, made prisoners and carried to Assyria in the 



^'Palmyra to Independence," pp. 142-144. 

2 John T. Short, in "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 133. 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON 101 

time of Hoshea, King of Israel, and in the time of Heze- 
kiah, King of Jerusalem . . . from whence they went to 
live in a land remote and separated, which had never been 
inhabited, to which they had a long and tedious journey 
of a year and a half, for which reason it is supposed 
these peoples are found in all the islands of the sea and 
lands of the ocean constituting the Occident." * 

What we are interested in noting, apart from the 
historical interest centered in these extracts, is that they 
are of Spanish origin. And when we remember that this 
intolerance on the part of the priests led them to settle 
everything in the light of Scriptural truth as they saw 
it, we shall see at once why they were vandals in the 
destruction of all that pertained to the history of these 
early peoples. Naturally they destroyed anything and 
everything that contravened their theories. 

The first English writer who fell in with this notion 
of the Israelitish origin of the Americans was Thorow- 
good in 1650. This work was replied to by Harmon 
L'Estrange in 1652, and so the war was on. But after 
mentioning a host of writers, whose mission was to ex- 
ploit some given phase of the question, Short concludes : 

Very little was done in the field with a true scientific spirit. 
Each has been an advocate rather than an inquirer ; he had his 
theory to prove sometimes at the expense of fact and reason, 
and it is remarkable that the majority of works written pre- 
sented the familiar anomaly of more learning than probability. 2 

Thus to mention all, according to this writer, might 
contribute to the satisfaction -of the reader, but, in the 
judgment of this antiquarian, they are of absolutely no 
scientific value. And he says this himself in practically 
the same words : "As nothing new has been written in 



1 Quoted by Short, p. 135. 
Hbid, p. 141. 



102 MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

this field of speculation since Mr. Bancroft . . . treated 
it, and as nothing could be contributed either to the 
sciences of ethnology or archaeology by a repetition of 
the old discussion here, for we have our doubts whether 
any of the claims can ever be substantiated at all, we 
will content ourselves with the simple enumeration of 
the theories." 1 

This writer enumerates many theories, but as our 
interest is centered in the generally styled "Jewish the- 
ory," we shall attend to what he says of this, and because 
of its vital interest will feel pardoned for the length of 
the quotation. This theory has been the most popular 
from the very first. Having been well introduced by 
Father Duran and amplified by Garcia, "the illustrious 
advocate of the Jewish colonization of America, was that 
indefatigable antiquarian Lord Kingsborough. No more 
masterly and more exhaustive, no abler defense was ever 
made in behalf of a hopeless and even baseless claim than 
/lis. . . . We must confess that the work itself, with its 
curious plates, its maze of notes and references, its mas- 
terly and novel discoveries of analogies, though many of 
them are imaginary, is to us, after prolonged examina- 
tion, as much of a riddle as the great and improbable 
theory which it seeks to establish." 2 

In the eyes of this writer, Kingsborough's work was 
in defense of "a great and improbable theory," "in behalf 
of a hopeless and even baseless claim," and after a "pro- 
longed examination" he finds the exposition of the theory 
as much of a riddle as the theory itself. It .is thus 
apparent that the theory antedates Smith by tzvo hundred 
years, and has its origin in a time when the study of the 
race was limited to axioms and postulates. Such meth- 



y Ibid, p. 141. 

2 Short, "North Americans of Antiquity," pp. 143, 144. 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON 103 

ods always impose limitations, and no other portion of 
the globe has suffered more from this hampering than 
has America, both North and South. The discovery of 
the new continents opened a new and fertile field in 
which the imagination roamed unrestricted. This New 
World invited a bright and dazzling array of talent. 
These Old World philosophers propounded about as 
many different theories as there were philosophers. Some 
of the theories were remarkable for their boldness and 
improbability. Although the Jew was found all over the 
world, and wherever and whenever found needed none to 
introduce him, yet by degrees of probability was it sought 
to trace his lineaments in those of the North American 
Indian. 

Lord Kingsborough has been cited as having elabo- 
rately handled the question of the Jewish origin of the 
Americans, and his works are said to have been pub- 
lished after the appearance of the Book of Mormon, thus 
rendering it impossible that the notions of the Book of 
Mormon could have been based upon Kingsborough's 
delineations. This does not materially invalidate the crit- 
icism that the Book of Mormon is based upon the then 
prevailing notions ; indeed, it rather confirms the belief 
that it was. We need not plunge into a criticism dealing 
with the time of Kingsborough's writings, as to whether 
it was immediately before or after the appearance of the 
Book of Mormon, for it serves our purpose just as well 
to say that Kingsborough wrote a digest of all that had 
been written before him of these absurdities, and lent his 
splendid talents to the exposition of a theory which zvas 
then of general acceptance, and of which opinions the 
author of the Book of Mormon was sharer. As well 
might an apologist for Kingsborough argue the correct- 
ness of his expressed notions as for the supporter of the 



104 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Book of Mormon to appeal to Kingsborough. They are 
both wrong. 

Kingsborough and Mormons alike seek to use analo- 
gies as arguments as they seek to connect the people of 
the Old World with the people of the New. Bancroft 
thus characterizes this method: "The ingenious scholar 
may find analogies in language, customs, institutions and 
religions between the aborigines and any people what- 
ever of the Old World; the pious curiosity of Christen- 
dom, and not a peculiar coincidence, created a special 
disposition to discover a connection between them (the 
aborigines) and the Hebrews." 1 So, because analogy 
proves too much, it proves nothing, and the adoption of 
the same methods by other writers has led them to con- 
clude that the aborigines can be traced to the Malays, the 
Phcenicians, the ten lost tribes, while even Donnely's 
Atlantis theory has for the same reasons found adhe- 
rents ; but it remained for the author of the Book of 
Mormon to accept a vagary, and upon it establish a 
religion. 

It must not be thought, however, that antiquarians 
have overlooked the Mormon theory. In fact, one of 
them has given a very concise statement of the theory, 
but, together with others equally unreliable, he has cast 
it into that vast limbo of exploded hypotheses where it 
rightly belongs. He says : 

Closely allied to the theory of the ten lost tribes is the claim 
set forth in that pretentious fraud, the Book of Mormon, which 
attributes the colonization of America, soon after the confusion 
of tongues, to a people called Jaredites, who, by divine guidance, 
reached our shores in eight vessels, and developed a high state 
of civilization on our soil. The first colonists, however, became 
extinct about six centuries B. C, because of their social sins. 



x "Native Races of the •Pacific States," Vol. III., p. 211. 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON 105, 

The Jaredites were followed by a second colony, this time of 
Israelites, who left Jerusalem in the first year of the reign of 
Zedekiah, king of Judah. They reached the Indian Ocean by 
following the shores of the Red Sea, where they built a vessel 
which bore them across the Pacific to the western coast of South 
America. Having arrived in the new land of promise, they sepa- 
rated into two parties, called the Nephites and Lamanites, re- 
spectively, after their leaders. They grew to be great nations 
and colonized North America also. Religious strife sprang up 
between the two nations because of the wickedness of the La- 
manites ; the Nephites adhered to their religious traditions and 
the worship of the true God. Christ appeared in the New 
World and by his ministration converted many of both peoples 
to him. But toward the close of the fourth century of our era, 
both the Nephites and the Lamanites backslid in faith and be- 
came involved in war with each other, which resulted in the 
extermination of the latter people. The numerous tumuli scat- 
tered over the face of the country cover the remains of the 
hundreds of thousands of warriors who fell in their deadly 
strife. Mormon and his son Moroni, the last of the Nephites 
who escaped by concealment, deposited by divine command the 
annals of their ancestors, the Book of Mormon written on tab- 
lets, in the hill of Cumorah, Ontario County, New York, in the 
vicinity of which the last battle of these relentless enemies took 
place. The claim, of course, merits mention only on the ground 
of its romantic character, and not on the supposition for a 
moment that it contains a grain of truth. 1 

In the Braden-Kelly debate, formerly referred to in 
this volume, it was expressly allowed that each disputant 
should use the Bible as the standard of evidence, "but 
either party has the privilege of also using whatever 
proofs he may bring from historical, ethnological, scien- 
tific and other works." : This shows that the Mor- 
mons place great emphasis upon the supposed corrobora- 
tion the modern ethnologists give their book. The claim 
is absolutely groundless. All the evidence he is able to 



a Short's "North Americans of Antiquity," pp. 
2 See preface to debate. 



io6 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

get from modern ethnology is based upon fragmentary 
and distorted quotations from any reliable authority. 

While we are ourselves convinced that not one iota 
of proof presents itself in behalf of the claims of Mor- 
monism, it may yet be of some interest to see to what 
use their writers will put their selected quotations. One 
of them thus appeals to Bancroft: 

The theory that the Americans are of Jewish descent has 
been discussed more minutely and at greater length than any 
other. Its advocates, or, at least, those of them who have made 
original researches, are comparatively few, but the extent of 
their investigations and the multitude of their parallelisms they 
adduce in support of their hypothesis exceed by far anything 
that we have encountered. 1 

The quotation is correct, but when read in the newly 
created atmosphere, it is designed to convey the impres- 
sion that an authority so weighty has been found on the 
.side of the Mormon. This conviction is conveyed to the 
unsophisticated, who has neither the leisure nor the 
b>ooks for making an examination personally, to ascertain 
whether Bancroft has actually lent his belief to support 
the Mormon contention. Understand, the quotation has 
b>een accurately made, but as the Mormon uses it and 
means that it shall be understood, it is false. Elsewhere 
Bancroft has committed himself in the following man- 
ner : 

Hence it is that many not unreasonably assume that the 
Americans are autochthones, until some good proof is given for 
believing them of exotic origin. To express belief in a theory 
incapable of proof appears idle ; indeed, such belief is not belief 
at all ; it is merely acquiescing in or accepting an hypothesis or 
tradition until the contrary is proved. No one can at the present 
day tell the origin of the Americans ; they may have come from 
any one, or from all, the hypothetical sources enumerated in 



^'Native Races cf the Pacific States," Vol. V., pp. yy, 78. 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON 107 

the foregoing pages ; and here the question must rest until we 
have more light upon the subject. 1 

And right there Mr. Bancroft rested the question as 
a not unreasonable assumption that the Americans are 
autochthones, a people who have grown up with the soil, 
and that conviction must abide until some good proof is 
given that they are of exotic origin. Inasmuch as the 
Book of Mormon theory was before him, we hold it to 
be a not unreasonable assumption that Mr. Bancroft did 
not place high value on it as proof. 

Frederick S. Dellenbaugh disposes of the Israelitish 
origin of the American Indian in this wise: "As for the 
lost tribes of Israel theory, on which Kingsborough was 
wrecked, no archaeologist of to-day would be willing to 
give it a second thought." * Under date of June 17, 
1905, in reply to a letter from me, W. H. Holmes, chief 
Bibliographer of the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian 
Institution, Washington, D. C, writes: 

I may say very briefly that at the present time no scientific 
ethnologist for a moment entertains the notion that the Ameri- 
can Indian is descended from the Jew, or has a trace of the lost 
tribes in his veins, unless acquired in very recent years. The 
American race stands alone, the result of a long period of de- 
velopment, a period which might be represented by tens of thou- 
sands rather than thousands of years. If the Indian of to-day 
can be traced beyond the Western Continent, he will be found 
to connect most directly with the peoples of eastern Asia, as he 
is undoubtedly more closely allied to the Mongolian race than 
to any other. 

These men, from whom we have so freely quoted, 
are taking the only position that is at once safe and 
sane. They take the American as they find him and 
trace him backward just as far as ethnological facts will 

nud, Vol. in., pp. 131, 132. 

2 "North Americans of Yesterday." 



108 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

lead the way. They no longer confess to Palgrave's 
pessimistic belief. Seeing how unsatisfactory had been 
the results of former efforts, and fearing that the veil 
that shuts out the past would never be lifted, he ex- 
claimed: "We must give it up, that speechless past; 
whether fact or chronology, doctrine or mythology ;; 
whether Europe, Asia, Africa or America ; at Thebes or 
Palenque, on Lycian shore or Salisbury plains ; lost is 
lost, gone is gone forever." l And Professor Thomas 
declares that which seemed beyond the ken of London's 
great antiquary and historian is now becoming more and 
more attainable. The veil is no longer fixed and impene- 
trable, but at numerous points has lifted and let in the 
light. But with one accord the scientific ethnologists 
to-day have relinquished their hold upon the views that 
obtained at the beginning of the early part of the last 
century and which were incorporated in the Book of 
Mormon, and are claiming for the American the same 
area of characterization as have the people of eastern 
Asia. 

Bancroft admitted the plausibility of the theory just 
set forth when he said: "The customs, manner of life, 
the physical appearance of the natives on both sides of 
the straits (Behring) are identical, as a multitude of 
witnesses tstify." l And to the same effect is the testi- 
mony of another : 3 

Hand in hand with the question of the antiquity of man on 
the continent goes the problem of whence he came. Theories 
of Asiatic, European, African and Polynesian origin are all 
equally dangerous and weak. Geological solutions by lost At- 
lantises and former land-bridges from the Old World may be 

1 Quoted by Prof. Cyrus Thomas, in his "Study of American Archae- 
ology," pp. 2, 3. 

2 "Native Races," Vol. V., p. 54. 

3 Livingston Farrand, "Basis of American History," p. 87. 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON 109 

invoked, but convince nobody except their proposers. The thor- 
ough ethnological studies which are now under way may at 
some future time throw light upon the problem; and we have 
arrived at a point of assurance that in the past northwestern 
America and northeastern Asia formed one area of culture. 
Whether that of the west came from the east, or that of the 
east was derived from the west, it is as yet impossible to say. 

With this quotation we conclude this part of our dis- 
cussion, believing that the consensus of scholarship to- 
day is in favor of acknowledging a kinship between the 
American and the people of northeastern Asia: 

Morris K. Jessup conceived the idea that the question could 
be settled whether the American Indian was of Asiatic origin 
or not ; whether he came to this part of the hemisphere from 
across the Behring Straits or landed on these shores from some 
other part of the earth. . . . What was known as the Jessup 
North-Pacific Expedition was fitted out Professors Jochelson 
and Bogoras, both Russians and both associated with the Rus- 
sian Academy of Sciences, were engaged by the Museum to do 
the work. They brought back conclusive proof, as they assert, 
that the American Indian and the Asiatic Eskimos are close 
akin, and that both originally came from China. . . . Bogoras 
took the tribes further north, while the interior was gone over 
by Jochelson. Bogoras went straightway to the most northern 
part of Asiatic Russia, away out near the Behring Straits. This 
brought him among the Chuckchi tribe. They were reindeer 
breeders. For three years he wandered with the band and be- 
came one of them. He found that these people undoubtedly 
belonged to the same stock as the American Indian. 1 

These views are the reflection of the world's scholar- 
ship to-day, and from their decision touching ethnologi- 
cal questions there can be no intelligent appeal. The 
Hebrew origin of the American is absolutely denied, and 
the theory is defenseless save as it derives support from 



1 American Museum of Natural History Memoirs, 1 898-1904; also 
Chicago American for Dec. 14, 1902, reprinted in Saints' Herald, Dec. 24, 
1902. 



i io M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

an antedated archaeology. Every known fact relative to 
their habits, mode of life, language, religion, precludes 
the possibility of them having descended from any tribe 
of the Hebrew people. And such being the case, the 
Book of Mormon is what John T. Short called it, "a pre- 
tentious fraud," meriting "mention only on the ground 
of its romantic character, and not on the supposition for 
a moment that it contains a grain of truth." 

There are some insurmountable difficulties that stand 
in the way of accepting the Book of Mormon hypothesis : 

First: If the Americans are descendants of Jacob and 
belong to any branch of the house of Israel, at least a 
few of the characteristics of that peculiar people, a 
people of the most pronounced type, would have been 
transmitted. The fact that not a single distinctive trait 
has ever been found among the American Indians, goes 
far to prove that there is nothing in -common between 
the two races of people, and that the latter can not have 
descended from the Jews. 

Second : The Book of Mormon claims that the ances- 
tors of the American Indians were Jews, and therefore 
are descended from an enlightened and highly civilized 
people, whereas the facts show that they were original 
barbarians. Says Baldwin: "In Africa, Asia and else- 
where, among the more uncultivated families of the 
human race, there is not so much of original barbarism 
as some anthropologists are inclined to assume ; but there 
can be no serious doubt that the wild Indians of North 
America were original barbarians, born of a stock which 
had never at any time been civilized or closely associated 
with the influences of civilization." l And when to 
this we add the testimony of Bancroft, the argument 



^'Ancient America," pp. 60, 61. 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON in 

becomes irrefutable. He says : "It has been asked if our 
Indians are not the wrecks of more civilized nations 
[exactly what the Book of Mormon declares they are]. 
Their language refutes the hypothesis; every one of its 
forms is a witness that their ancestors were like them- 
selves, not yet disenthralled from nature." 1 

Of like import is Mr. Gallatin's summary of the 
American languages : "That from the Arctic Ocean to 
Cape Horn, while they number more than one hundred, 
differing in their vocabulary, they have, so far as has 
been investigated, a distinct character common to all, and 
apparently different from those of the other continent 
with which we are most familiar; that they bear the 
impress of primitive languages and assumed their forms 
from natural causes, and afford no proof of their being 
derived from a nation in a more advanced state of civili- 
zation, and that they attest the antiquity of the popula- 
tion — an antiquity of the earliest we are permitted to as- 
sume." 2 

Thus, and finally, is the conclusion reached that the 
Americans are not the "wreck" of a former civilization, 
but are an autochthones people ; not formerly civilized, 
later lapsing into barbarism, but original barbarians. 
And these conclusions, not our own, but those of leading 
ethnologists, are irreconcilable with the claims of that 
"pretentious fraud," the Book of Mormon. 

With the foregoing paragraph we had closed this 
chapter, but, having come across a paragraph or two 
from the pen of J. H. Beadle, we could not forego the 
pleasure of reproducing them, since they are germane to 
the line of argument we have advanced. He says: 



^'History of the United States," Vol. III., p. 235. 
2 Quoted by Foster in "Prehistoric Races," p. 321. 



iip MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Some sixty years ago Major Noah maintained that the lost 
tribes were the ancestors of the American Indians and the 
builders of the ruins described ; and a few others held that if 
not the ten tribes, there was a Jewish colony [just what the 
Book of Mormon claims. — s. w. t.L It would certainly be an 
amazing thing if such a people as the Jews could in a few cen- 
turies lose all trace of their language, religion, forms of govern- 
ment, art, science and general knowledge, and sink into a tribe 
of barbarians. But when we add that their bodily shape must 
have completely changed, their skulls lengthened, the beard 
dropped from their faces, and their language undergone a 
reversion from a derivative type to a primitive type, a thing 
unknown in any human tongue, the supposition becomes too 
monstrous even to be discussed. 1 

Other writers have gently laid the corpse of the Jew- 
ish theory in its coffin, but Beadle nails down the lid, and 
places its resurrection beyond hope. As a theory it has 
been defenseless from the very first, and has never had 
more than bald assertion. Consequently, lacking proof, 
the Mormons fail to substantiate their claims, and the 
weakness of their contention is such as might be expected 
from perpretators of a fraud. And so do we decide that 
this investigation confirms the assertion that the Book of 
Mormon is a modern production, written by one who 
accepted the ethnology current in his day, and which, if 
true, everlastingly refutes its claim to be a real history 
of a real people. The ethnology of the Book of Mormon 
is wrong. 

ll 'Four Centuries of Progress," pp. 21, 22. 



PHILOLOGY OF BOOK OF MORMON 113 



CHAPTER VIII. 
The Philology of the Book of Mormon. 

The Rev. M. T. Lamb has presented in his work, 
'The Mormons and Their Bible," an argument on "the 
written language of ancient America" that is unanswer- 
able. It is based on two exhibits, one being a facsimile 
of characters of the Book of Mormon, and the other a 
facsimile representation of the hieroglyphics on the 
Copan statue. By placing these side by side, the 
student is unable to trace any family resemblance 
which may exist between that which Joseph Smith 
claims to have copied from the plates and that which 
the camera has reproduced from the face of the 
Copan statue. And the impression is left, finally, 
that Joseph Smith was overtaken by that strange 
fatality that is the fate of most bunglers. The argument 
amounts to nothing, from the Mormon standpoint, when 
it is sought to compare the hieroglyphics of Copan with 
the hieroglyphics of Egypt, for always, since Joseph 
Smith certified to the correctness of his transcription of 
the plates, does that copy contradict them both. The 
Mormons thus find their apologetic task doubled ; they 
must not alone show -the family likeness existing between 
the Copan and Egyptian hieroglyphics, but they must 
show that Smith's "caractors" are related to both. 

The late D. H. Bays, in his "Doctrines and Dogmas 
of Mormonism," propounded the question, "Were the 
characters on the plates Egyptian?" He conceived that 
the question was a purely linguistic one, and could see 
no other way to settle a linguistic question than to submit 



H4 MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

the facsimile of the characters to linguists for examina- 
tion. To make sure that the characters were correctly 
submitted, he cut the plate out of a copy of a Mormon 
book, sent it to the best Egyptologist known to him, 
requesting a professional opinion on the document, and, 
as he says, in every instance received a prompt and cour- 
teous reply. Without attempting to reproduce here that 
entire correspondence, it is enough to indicate the gist 
of replies received by Mr. Bays. James B. Angell, of 
the University of Michigan, submitted the letter and 
enclosure to his professor in Oriental languages,. He, as 
president of the institution, vouched for the professor's 
learning by saying that "he is a man of large learning in 
Semitic languages and archaeology. " The professor 
said: "The document which you enclose raises a moral 
rather than a linguistic problem. . . . There are no 
Assyrian characters in it, and the impression is that the 
document is fraudulent!' The inference is, of course, 
that if the characters were what they are represented to 
be, the question would be linguistic, but since they ap- 
pear to be fraudulent, the question is one of morals. 

It has been, and is, the boast of Mormonism that the 
plates were covered with characters of the Egyptian, 
Chaldaic, Assyrian and Arabic languages, and to the end 
that the reader may be impressed with this fact, Martin 
Harris' alleged statement from Professor Anthon is used 
as proof. Harris is reported to have said that when he 
had submitted the characters to Professor Anthon, the 
professor said that "the translation w«as correct ; more so 
than any he had before seen translated from the Egyp- 
tian. I then showed those that were not translated, and 
he said they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyrian and 
Arabic." 



'Voice of Warnine." n. ia. 



PHILOLOGY OF BOOK OF MORMON 115 

Now, with this introduction we are ready for more 
of the correspondence between D. H. Bays and these 
professors of the Oriental languages. 1 Charles H. S. 
Davis, M. D., Ph. D., of Meriden, Conn., author of 
"Ancient Egypt in the Light of Recent Discoveries," had 
this to say: 

I am familiar with the Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyrian and 
Arabic, and have considerable acquaintance with all the Oriental 
languages, and I can positively assert that there is not a letter 
to be found in the facsimile submitted that can be found in the 
alphabet of any Oriental language, particularly of those you 
refer to — namely, Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyrian and Arabic. A 
careful study of the facsimile shows that they are characters 
put down at ranr 1 ^ by an ignorant person — with no resem- 
blance to anything, not even shorthand. 

Dr. Charles E. Moldenke, of New York, commended 
by the above Dr. Davis as "probably the best Egyptian 
scholar in the country," said : "... I believe the plates 
of the Book of Mormon to be a fraud. In the first place, 
it is impossible to find in any old inscription Egyptian, 
Arabic, Chaldaic and Assyrian characters mixed to- 
gether. The simple idea of finding the Egyptian and 
Arabic side by side is ridiculous and impossible." Thus 
does Mr. Bays make out his case as one of ignorance 
against scholarship. The testimony of the witnesses to 
the book is arrayed against the testimony of an equal 
number of scholars. And the conclusion reached by this 
author is : "If Mormonism is truej the plates must have 
been written in Egyptian. The plates were not written 
in Egyptian. Therefore Mormonism is not true. And if 
Mormonism is not true, then the three witnesses arc 
deceivers, Joseph Smith was an impostor, and the Mor- 



^'Doctrines and Dogmas of Mormonism," Chaps, xxvii., xxviii. 



n6 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

mon Church a fraud. There is no possible means to 
escape this conclusion." x 

These two lines of investigation are interesting, and, 
as we believe, are unanswerable. However, we propose 
to supplement them in this chapter by an entirely differ- 
ent course of study. We believe that there is what might, 
for the want of a better term, be called an American 
philology. So far as we are aware, the peculiar test 
which is here to be applied has in no other volume been 
similarly employed. That we may proceed in an orderly 
manner, we shall first attempt to discover our philologi- 
cal material in the Book of Mormon itself. 

Early reference is made to language in the Nephite 
records : "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, 
therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of 
my father; . . . Yea, I make record, in the language of 
my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews, 
and the language of the Egyptians" ' This was about 
the year 600 B. C. It appears remarkable that this Jew, 
Lehi by name, could have acquired such familiarity with 
the Egyptian language that a dutiful son should refer to 
this as making record "in the language of my father." 
And our wonder increases when the son tells us that his 
father had "dwelt in Jerusalem all his days." Hence, 
whatever knowledge he had of the "Egyptian" he learned 
in Jerusalem. 

With a remarkable persistency and consistency this 
fiction is sustained throughout the book. In Mosiah 1 : 4, 
written about 320 B. C, the writer says : 

For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have 
remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, 
except it were for the help of the plates; for he having been 



1 Ibid, pp. 275, 276. 
2 Nephi 1 : i, 2. 



PHILOLOGY OF BOOK OF MORMON 117 

taught in the language of the Egyptians, therefore he could read 
the engravings, and teach them to his children. 

Then, in the Book of Mormon — that is, the book 
written by the man Mormon, claimed to have been writ- 
ten in about 420 A. D. — boast is made of becoming 
learned somewhat after the learning of his people, and 
that he took the plates of Nephi, wrote additional mate- 
rial on them, and, when done, added: 

And now behold we have written this record according to 
our knowledge in the characters, which are among us called 
the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us 
according to our manner of speech. And if our plates had been 
sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew ; but the 
Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have 
written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have no imperfection in our 
record. 1 

Thus it is apparent that there were two main lan- 
guages used by these people whose history is written on 
these plates, viz. : the Hebrew and the Egyptian. But as 
time went on both these languages were corrupted, so 
that the one was but imperfectly known, while the other 
was styled the "reformed Egyptian." Lehi did not have 
a knowledge of the "reformed Egyptian," his language 
was Egyptian Nor did he have a knowledge of cor- 
rupted Hebrew, for this belonged to his descendants. 
Consequently, when at last the "Urim and Thummim" 
should be called into use, it would have to deal in the 
earlier part with a pure Egyptian, and as it read the later 
history, it would be used on a "reformed Egyptian." But 
the people spoke Hebrew at first, and later a corrupted 
form of the Hebrew. Hence it follows as a philological 
necessity, assuming that the Book of Mormon is a record 
of ancient America, that when the spade exhumes that 



1 Mormon ix: 32, 33. 



n8 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

historic past, the inscriptions disclosed must be in one or 
the other of these languages, or in a language derived 
therefrom. 

That we may not overestimate the ethnological value 
of the study of languages, let us see what Foster has. 
to say on this very point: 

The study of languages affords a reliable guide in tracing 
the migration of tribes, even where they become intermingled 
with other tribes. In the social relations thus established there 
would not result the total obliteration of the language of one 
tribe, but certain words and forms of speech would be adopted 
and perpetuated. "Nothing," says Bancroft, "is so indelible as 
speech. Sounds that in ages of unknown antiquity were spoken 
among the nations of Hindostan still live in the significancy of 
the language that we daily utter." Palgrave echoes the same 
sentiment. 

Language adheres to the soil when the lips that spoke it are 
resolved into dust. Mountains repeat, and rivers murmur the 
voices of nations denationalized or extirpated in their own 
land. 1 

Most assuredly should we expect that some trace of 
the ancient Nephites and Lamanites could be found in 
the language which they daily uttered. Here and there 
in this vast land once occupied by these people should 
be found some unmistakable linguistic evidence of that 
occupancy. The language of the Nephites and Laman- 
ites must somewhere be clinging to the soil, though the 
lips that spoke it are resolved into dust. Some river 
should murmur or some mountain repeat the voice of 
that nation or those nations extirpated in their own land. 
Since the Mormons have been in existence they have 
left such traces in their migrations, as witness Lamoni 
(Iowa) and Zerahemla (Wisconsin). The Old Testa- 
ment land still repeats the names of the Old Testament 



1 Foster's "Prehistoric Nations," p. 318. 



PHILOLOGY OF BOOK OF MORMON 119 

itself, as witness Bethel, Beersheba, Caesarea, Bethlehem,, 
and many others, to attest the genuineness of its claims. 
Applying the same test to the Book of Mormon, it fails 
in every particular. Populous cities were founded, but 
not a name remains. With all their boasted and pomp- 
ous claims, they can not point to a single city that the 
Book of Mormon describes. The whole record is not 
even myth, it is a fabrication pure and simple from be- 
ginning to end. 

If, now, the Book of Mormon teaches us that these 
people had but two languages, the Hebrew and Egyptian, 
or corrupted forms of these, and if (1) we find that 
neither Hebrew nor Egyptian has ever been used on the 
continent, or (2) that many languages other than and 
having no affinity with either of these existed at the time 
that is covered by the Book of Mormon history, then will 
the book itself be proved a stupid and clumsy fraud. 
Hence the apologist for the book must show that not 
alone did the Americans speak the Hebrew or Egyptian, 
or some language derived from them, but they must also 
show that every known form of language in ancient 
America is derivable and derived from the Hebrew or 
Egyptian, or from a combination of the two. This task 
he can not shirk and leave unimpaired the claims for the 
integrity of his book. 

If the Book of Mormon is true, then the inhabitants 
of ancient America are of ethnic unity. On this point 
John T. Short explicitly says : 

Probably one of the most incontrovertible arguments against 
American ethnic unity is that which rests upon the unparalleled 
diversity of languages which meets the philologist everywhere. 
The monosyllable and the most remarkable polysyllable known 
to the linguist, synthetic and analytic families of speech, sim- 
plicity and complexity of expression, all seem to have sprung up> 



120 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

and developed into permanent and, in some cases, beautiful and 
grammatical systems side by side with each other until the 
Babel of the Pentateuch is realized in the indescribable con- 
fusions of tongues. The actual number of American languages 
and dialects is as yet unascertained, but it is estimated at nearly 
thirteen hundred, six hundred of which Mr. Bancroft has classi- 
fied in his third volume of "The Native Races of the Pacific 
States." * 

Touching the question of a possible derivation of 
these languages from the Old World, Hayden says : 

No theories of the derivation from the Old World have 
stood the test of grammatical construction. All traces of the 
fugitive tribes of Israel, supposed to be found here, are again 
lost. Neither the Phoenicians nor Hindoos nor Chinese nor 
Scandinavians nor Welsh have left an impress of their national 
syntax behind them. But the dialects of the Western Continent, 
radically united among themselves and radically distinguished 
from all others, stand in hoary brotherhood by the side of the 
most vocal systems of the human race. 2 

We have seen before 3 that, for the accounting of 
the multiplication of languages, Mr. Gallatin wanted the 
longest possible time we are permitted to assume, indi- 
cating that the philologists of to-day unite in their belief 
in this diversity, for the explanation of whose rise the 
element of time is not a negligible factor. And what is to 
the point in our discussion, Mr. Gallatin discovered that 
the languages of America were "primitive," and "not 
derived from a nation in a more advanced state of civili- 
zation." If, then, these languages are primitive and not 
derived as the Book of Mormon would have us believe, 
unquestionably the book is wrong. If wrong, it is not 
a history, and if not a history, it is at the best a romance. 



1 "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 190. 
2 "Arch£eology of the United States," p. 54. 
3 See ante, p. 54. 



PHILOLOGY OF BOOK OF MORMON 121 

And if the book is right, then Bancroft, Foster, Short, 
Baldwin, are all wrong, and the Mormon is deprived of 
their use in attempting to establish the claims of his 
book; but if they are right, then by every philological 
test the book falls to the ground. 

In attempting to show the affinity between the lan- 
guages of the Old World and those of the New, recourse 
has been had to that method employed so largely by 
Kingsborough, that of resemblances. But this method is 
generally discredited by scholars to-day. Says Foster 
anent this method: 

The slight resemblances which have been discovered between 
the roots of words in the American*language on the one hand 
and the Hebrew on the other, and a single text in the apoc- 
ryphal Book of Esdras, have been the foundation of a belief 
heretofore prevalent among writers of American ethnology, that 
this continent was originally peopled by the lost tribes of Israel, 
whose descendants were to be recognized in the red man (al- 
most the exact belief of the Mormons). It is hardly necessary 
to advert at this day to a belief which was profoundly enter- 
tained a century ago, except as an evidence of the progress of 
ethnological knowledge. [Quoting Bancroft, he continues:] 

"The ingenious scholar may find analogies in language, cus- 
toms, institutions and religions between the aborigines of Amer- 
ica and any nation whatever of the Old World. ... To us there 
and no direct and obvious links between the Old World and the 
New ; for even admitting the seeming analogies to which we 
have alluded, these are so few in number, and evidently so 
casual, as not to invalidate the main position." How can we 
explain the primitive and unique character of the American lan- 
guage? How explain the peopling of continents and isles of the 
sea, girt by barren waters? In vain do we seek in the old civil- 
ization for any connecting links; in vain do we search the lan- 
guages of the two hemispheres for common forms of expres- 
sion? 

How easy would be this task that is the despair of 



^'Prehistoric Races," pp. 322-324, $$7. 



322 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

this author, if these languages were derived and not 
primitive, similar and not unique! The Book of Mor- 
mon in its advocacy requires the doctrine that they are 
similar and derived; philology says they are primitive 
and unique. 

By referring now to the Book of Mormon (Mormon 
6: 15), we learn that in the year 420 our era, after a 
relentless warfare between the Nephites and Lamanites, 
that there was left just a handful of people. In the 
exact words of Mormon, the story runs : "All my people, 
save it were those twenty and four which were with me, 
and also a few who had escaped into the south countries, 
and a few which had dissented over to the Lamanites, 
had fallen, and their flesh and bones and blood lay upon 
the face of the earth, being left by the hands of those 
who slew them." 

Turning from that gory scene, in the full conscious- 
ness that it was only a "remnant" that survived that 
great war, we remark that if the Book of Mormon cor- 
rectly tells the story of that period, this "remnant" be- 
came the progenitors of the American Indian. Not only 
that, but they and their descendants originated approxi- 
mately thirteen hundred languages and dialects, or more 
than one new language or dialect for each year of the 
time intervening between 420 A. D. and 1492 A. D. But 
as they at that time had only a knowledge of the Egyp- 
tian and Hebrew, and both in a corrupted form, in this 
incredibly short time they developed this great number 
of languages so radically different from the original lan- 
guages as to contain not a single element of the mother 
tongue. This is too palpably absurd for credence. 

At the time of the conquest of Mexico, the Aztecs 
were a cultured people. Indeed, as early as 1062 A. D. 
there was a civilization that rivaled that of Europe dur- 



PHILOLOGY OF BOOK OF MORMON 123 

ing the Middle Ages. Yet, Mormonism would compel 
us to believe that this was the development of that little 
band of Lamanites who escaped on the last day of the 
great battle. All this, too, over the protest that the Maya 
language is the oldest on the continent. Short says that 
''it was old and ripe when the Toltecs came in contact 
with it. Here in this picturesque valley region in Ta- 
basco and Chiapas we may look for the cradle of 
American civilization. Under the shadow of the mag- 
nificent and mysterious ruins of Palenque a people grew 
who spread into Guatemala and Honduras, northward 
into Anahuac, and southward into Yucatan, and for a 
period of probably twenty -five centuries exercised a 
sway which at one time excited the envy and fear of its 
neighbors." 1 

J. W. Foster tells us that "the oldest certain date in 
the Nahuatal or Toltec language reaches back 955 years 
before Christ ; and as the Toltecs dwelt for some time in 
the country of Zibalba, before they seized supreme 
power, their migration must have begun more than a 
thousand years before the Christian era." : Adding 
Short's probable date of twenty-five centuries in duration 
to the 1000 B. C, we have for the beginning of the 
Mayan civilization an approximate date of 3500 B. C. 
So, while Joseph Smith had his "paper" Nephites and 
Lamanites fighting each other to extermination in New 
York, there existed at that very moment the Mayas, 
occupying Tabasco and Chiapas in southern Mexico and 
the peninsula of Yucatan. Other existing peoples may 
be mentioned, such as the Toltecs, the Chichimecs and 
the Nuhuas of Mexico, to say nothing of the Peruvians 
and other South American peoples. Still, the "preten- 



1 "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 203. 
2 "Prehistoric Races," pp. 342, 343. 



124 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

tious fraud," the Book of Mormon, tells us that the 
Lamanites and a handful of Nephites were the only 
people left on this continent after the battle in or about 
the year 420 A. D. 

The author of the "Atlantis" says : "The Mayas suc- 
ceeded the Colhuas, whose era terminated one thousand 
years before Christ," * or three thousand years ago, and 
upon this the authorities agree. For the sake of using 
these figures in an orderly way, let us arrange them in 
this wise: 

The Mayas succeeded the Colhuas in Mexico, B. C. 
1000. The Nephites landed in the year B. C. 600 There- 
fore the Mayas had been on the soil for a period of four 
hundred years before the Nephite colony landed. The 
declaration, then, of the Book of Mormon that the entire 
Jaredite colony had perished just before the landing of 
the Nephite colony is unquestionably false. The last 
chapter of the Book of Ether recounts that battle. It 
would have made for the integrity of the book had there 
been some few who escaped, so that the Mormons might 
be able to fill this gap in their book. This in itself is 
enough to establish the falsity of its claims. 

If, then, as seems reasonable, the Colhuas antedated 
the Mayas by three thousand years, then it is clear that 
the Colhuas occupied Mexico and Central America four 
thousand years before our era. Le Plungeon says : "It 
was used by a people that lived at least six thousand 
years ago." And on this point Mr. Donnelly says: "In 
the light of such discovery, the inscriptions on the monu- 
ments of Central America assume incalculable impor- 
tance; they take us to a civilization far anterior to any 



l Donnelly's "Atlantis," p. 218. 



PHILOLOGY OF BOOK OF MORMON 125 

of the oldest known in Europe; they represent the lan- 
guage of the antediluvian times." x 

Allowing that these figures are approximately accu- 
rate, and there is as yet no good reason for revising 
them, we have : 

The Colhuas were living in America, B. C. 4000. The 
Jaredite colony came about B. C. 2133. Therefore the 
Colhuas preceded the Jaredites, in years, 1,867. 

What, then, becomes of the monstrous claim of the 
Book of Mormon that this Jaredite expedition was the 
Lord's colonization scheme for this portion of the world's 
surface? It brings us to the agreement with the Mor- 
mons that Joseph Smith was an illiterate author. It is 
just such a book as we should expect to be the product 
of a blundering ignoramus who knew nothing of the 
rudiments of his mother tongue, much, less possessed a 
working knowledge of a foreign language. Yet this 
bungler was possessed, as bunglers sometimes are, with 
an intolerable egotism which led him to palm off this 
senseless jargon as the inspired word of God. To the 
Mormon who thinks, there is no way open for a longer 
acceptance of it; for the one who does not, there is noth- 
ing that will save him from its imposture. 



^'Atlantis," p. 235. 



126 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Book of Mormon and the Religions of Ancient 
America. 

The spirit of adoration is coeval with the race. Adam 
heard the voice of God in the primeval garden, Abel 
offered sacrifice to an unseen power, while guilty Cain 
bowed with a gift which his Deity would not accept. 
From that border-line of light, where authentic history 
fails us, we feel our way back towards the beginning of 
the human family by the ruins of its temples and the 
fragments of its solemn traditions. 

Every great civilization has left unmistakable evi- 
dences of its existence, its greatness and its power. Time 
has left his indelible marks in every known quarter of 
the habitable globe. Egypt in her pyramids leaves a 
mute witness to the power and dominion of the Pha- 
raohs; India, by means of her numerous cave-temples, 
marvels of beauty, "carved out of the solid rock by the 
ancient Hindus," speaks of her religion and her art. 
Assyria, Babylon, Greece and Rome take their place in 
the family of nations and attest the story of vanished 
power and departed glory. 

While the great civilizations of the eastern hemis- 
phere were at the very zenith of their power and domin- 
ion, there flourished on this continent a civilization which 
in many respects was the peer of Greece and Rome in 
their palmiest days. We refer, of course, to the Mayan 
civilization. Copan and Palenque are eloquent in their 
praise of those halcyon days, and even in their ruins 
extol the magnificence and power of that departed re- 



RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT AMERICA 127 

nown. It is of this civilization, so it is claimed, that the 
Book of Mormon gives us an historical account. It 
would be interesting, indeed, if true. 

This gives us the data for the discussion to be carried 
on in this chapter. If the story of the book is in har- 
mony with the known historical facts as associated with 
the religions of ancient America, then it may be true; 
but if its declarations are at variance with and contra- 
dicted by these same facts, it must be rejected as spuri- 
ous. With these points clearly before us, let us ask, 
What does the Book of Mormon teach relative to the 
religions of ancient America? 

The reader has certainly not failed to note, ere this, 
that the Book of Mormon purports to describe two dif- 
ferent civilizations, the one, the Jaredite, and the other, 
the Nephite. We shall take them up in this order. 

First, the religion of the Jaredites. 

The Book of Ether is the portion of the Book of 
Mormon that deals with the people known as the Jared- 
ites. In that book we discover that Christ appeared to 
Jared's brother about two thousand years before Christ 
came in the flesh, and gave him instruction concerning 
the building of those wonderful barges by which the 
Jaredites were' later transported to this land ; he also in- 
formed him that the land was "a choice land," and that 
they shall worship the God of this land, which is Jesus 
Christ ; that in service they were to repent and come unto 
the Father in the name of Jesus, and thus be received 
into the kingdom of God. We learn, further, that com- 
ing unto the Father meant an obedience to the gospel. 
""Therefore repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come 
unto me, and believe in my gospel, and be baptised in my 
name; for he that believeth and is baptised shall be 



128 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

saved; but he that believe th not, shall be damned; and 
signs shall follow them that believe in my name!' 1 

If words can mean anything definitely in the English 
language, there can not be the slightest doubt that these 
so-called Jaredites were Christians, and, as such, left be- 
hind them unmistakable evidences of a Christian civiliza- 
tion. 

Second, the Nephite religion. 

Inasmuch as there was another civilization known as 
that which grew out of the Nephite migration, we ask 
what was its character from the religious standpoint? 
In it we learn that by the year 320 B. C, about 270 years 
after this colony landed on this continent, although at 
various times instruction had been given, and presumably 
followed out, that they should believe, that they should 
repent, and that they should be baptized, here for the 
first time is there a record of the organization of a 
church. God is represented as authorizing the proceed- 
ings of that day, and after 204 people had been baptized, 
"they were called the church of God, or the church of 
Christ, from that time forward. And it came to pass 
that whosoever was baptized by the power and authority 
of God, was added to the church." 2 After this, at 
intervals, there is information given that warrants the 
belief that this same kind of doctrine was continued 
among the Nephites, and in respect to dates they are as 
follows: Alma, B. C. 91; Heleman, B. C. 52; Nephi, 
A. D. 1-26; Nephi, A. D. 35; Mormon, A. D. 384, and 
Moroni, A. D. 420. So, for a period extending from. 
320 B. C. to 420 A. D., or 740 years, there was a Chris- 
tian church on this continent. 

This makes conclusive our deductions that, in the 



iEther 4: 18. 
2 Mosiah 18: 17. 



RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT AMERICA 129 

broadest sense of the term, both of these civilizations 
were Christian; hence if the Book of Mormon is a real 
history of a real people, it follows that the civilization 
that the spade exhumes shall be Christian. It must be 
held to be incontrovertibly true that, if the spade says 
one thing and the plates another, while talking about the 
same thing, the plates are wrong, that is all. If sub- 
sequent investigation discloses the fact that the people of 
ancient America were idolatrous and not Christian, there 
will have been created a discrepancy in the record that 
will require the immediate attention of any well-meaning 
believer in the Book of Mormon. 

The paramount question that presents itself is, Were 
the religions of ancient America idolatrous or Christian, 
which ? 

For upwards of four centuries all questions relating 
to the origin and religion of the Americans have been 
fruitful sources of controversy. Many volumes have 
been written setting forth the views of their authors 
touching both of these questions, but, save the Book of 
Mormon, not one has been written to show that the relig- 
ion of ancient America was Christian, and, agreeable to 
ascertained facts, the contrary has been defended There 
is a perfect agreement, barring this one discordant note 
from the Book of Mormon, that the religion of both 
North and South America was both pagan and idola- 
trous, the proof of which we shall now submit. 

In a former chapter we have adverted to the incon- 
sequential reasoning based upon analogy, and we might 
consider that reference to it sufficient did we not come in 
contact with it, when the Mormon seeks to show an 
affinity between the Lamanites and the North Americans, 
Short tells us that "argument from analogy is at best 
unscientific — it proves nothing. It is a matter of sur- 



130 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

prise how much has been written to establish that the 
Mexicans were descendants of the Jews in both race and 
religion." * Some of the efforts he characterizes as 
fanciful and mirth-provoking. Were the question not so 
serious, we might allow our own risibilities to be stirred 
as we behold the same attempts being made. But experi- 
ence has shown that even the most fanciful and under 
ordinary conditions the most mirth-provoking of all 
plans are pressed into service in the full belief that they 
are of actual value. It is so hard for these specious 
pleaders to discover that their attempts prove absolutely 
nothing. 

Among the analogies used are baptism, circumcision, 
doctrine of sin and atonement, trespass offering, doctrine 
of hell, resurrection of the body, Sabbath-keeping, dis- 
gust for swine flesh, crosses, story of the virgin, the 
annunciation, stilling of the tempest, and many others 
beyond our patience and time to enumerate. But, seri- 
ously, what do they prove? Doubtless to the Mormon 
much, but to one who prefers proof to presumption,, 
nothing. 

Lafitau just as enthusiastically supported and as 
surely proved that these several analogies traced the 
relationship between the Americans and the Greeks. The 
fact is that these seeming analogies are none other than 
accidental, as any well-instructed ethnologist will tell 
you. If it is discovered that the Americans had a relig- 
ious system analogous to that known to belong to any 
people of the Old World, it would argue the sameness 
of mental operations along parallel lines of culture with 
more certainty than it would the transmission of ideas 
along racial lines. The Jews have been called a "peculiar 



^'North Americans of Antiquity," pp.. 459., 460... 



RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT AMERICA 131 

people." In one sense they are, and only one. As Gar- 
rick Mallery said, "There is racially no peculiar people 
in the sense intended. Mankind is essentially homo- 
geneous in nature, though placed in differing and ever - 
advancing grades of culture." That witness is true. 

The author from whom we have quoted so freely in 
our studies of the ancient Americans, tells that "the most 
persistent investigation has failed to disclose any marked 
resemblance between the architecture, art, religion and 
customs of the North Americans, considered as a whole, 
and of any Old World people. It is true that occasional 
analogies suggest intercourse and even relationship with 
particular cases, as, for instance, the serpent and phallus 
worship common to all aboriginal Americans and the 
people of India. 

"Sun-worship, so widespread, may also indicate an 
ancient community of residence for those peoples who 
practice it. . . . The venerable civilization of the Mayas, 
whose forest-grown cities and crumbling temples hold 
entombed a history of vanished glory, now belongs to the 
remotest period of American antiquity. It was old when 
the Nahuas, then a comparatively rude people, first came 
in contact with it, adopted many of its features and 
engrafted upon it new life. . . . The powerful empire of 
the Quiche-Cakchiquels was the result of the union of 
the old and new races. The otherwise inviting picture 
of ancient American civilization is marred by the intro- 
duction of human sacrifices which in each instance oc- 
curred during the period of political decadence of the 
people practicing it, and no doubt was the potent factor 
in the downfall of both the Toltec and Aztec mon- 
archies." 1 



a "North Americans of Antiquity," pp. 519, 520. 



132 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Says Foster, in speaking of the Mound-builders: 

What strange rites were practiced around these altars will 
forever, to some degree, be veiled from our comprehension, but 
the past is not altogether inscrutable. The Mound-builders wor- 
shiped the elements — the Sun, the Moon and particularly Fire. 
They erected their fire-altars for sacrifice on the highest sum- 
mits. Like the Persian sun-worshipers, they undoubtedly had 
their Magi, without whose presence sacrifice could not go on. 
. . . The numerous reliquiae of charred bones leave behind the 
terrible conviction that on these occasions human victims were 
offered up as an acceptable sacrifice to the elements. . . . The 
sun-worshipers of Mexico practiced the same terrible rites, of 
which Bernal Diaz was an eye-witness. . . . Man had not yet 
learned that the incense of human sacrifice is not acceptable to 
his Maker. 1 

Alike, in his two works dealing respectively with 
Peru and Mexico, does William H. Prescott confirm this 
testimony. For we are to remember this, that whether 
the civilization is found on the northern or the south- 
ern continent, it must, if the Book of Mormon is true, 
be all traced to these escaping Lamanites who fled on the 
great day of battle in 420 A. D., finding their way to 
their respective destinations from Ontario County, N. Y. 

Says John D. Baldwin : "The civilization in Peru was 
very different from that in Mexico and Central America. 
In both regions the people were sun-worshipers, but their 
religious organizations, as well as their methods of build- 
ing, were unlike. Neither of these peoples seems to have 
borrowed from the other." 2 

With one more witness we are ready to submit the 
case to the reader. For graphic description and minute- 
ness of detail none surpasses the erudite Bancroft in por- 
traying the ceremonies incident to sun-worship. Nearly 



^'Prehistoric Nations of the United States," pp. 182, 184. 
2 " Ancient America," 246. 



RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT AMERICA 133 

one entire volume of his series is given up to the descrip- 
tion of the religions of these peoples residing in the very 
territory which the Mormon claims for his mythical 
Lamanites and Nephites. Bancroft assigns the begin- 
ning of the sun-worship at a time antedating the coming 
of Christ. He says that "the gods of the Yucatecs (the 
ancient Mayas of Yucatan) required far fewer human 
lives at the hands of their worshipers than those of the 
Nahuas. Nevertheless, the Yucatec religion was not free 
from human sacrifices ; and although captives taken in 
war were used for this purpose, yet it is said such was 
their devotion that, should a victim be wanting, they 
would dedicate their children to the altar rather than let 
the gods be deprived of their dues. The custom of eat- 
ing the flesh of human victims who were sacrificed to the 
gods was probably practiced more or less in all the Maya 
regions." * 

When, on October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus 
first set his feet on American soil, the first human beings 
who met his gaze were perfectly naked savages. Later, 
in 1 5 19, when Cortez and his little army penetrated the 
empire of Montezuma and began the conquest of Mexico, 
while they found the people in some respects well ad- 
vanced in the arts and sciences, yet on every hand they 
were confronted with the unmistakable evidences of bar- 
barism. Sun-worship and human sacrifices were every- 
where visible. Throughout the vast domain of Monte- 
zuma "a monarch whose dominion was more extensive 
than all the kingdoms subject to the Spanish crown," 
heathen temples and heathen altars and towers for hu- 
man sacrifice were among the most familiar of the 
objects that met his astonished gaze. Not a sacrifice "on 

^'Native Races of the Pacific States," p. 704. 



134 MORMQNISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Jewish altars slain," not a Jewish temple nor a Christian 
house of worship was anywhere to be found. 

What was true of Mexico, was equally true of Cen- 
tral America and South America. Not a vestige of the 
Jewish religion — not a hint at the existence of a Chris- 
tian civilization — has been discovered that will convey 
even the remotest idea that either a Jew or a Christian 
had ever set his foot on the soil, until Christopher 
Columbus, on San Salvador, in 1492, bowed the Christian 
knee and breathed a Christian prayer, and in the name o£ 
the King and his church claimed the land which he had 
discovered. Certainly not till then. 

Yet, that boastful fraud, the Book of Mormon, as- 
suming to be the authentic history of a great civilization, 
Christian in character and running through a period of 
almost twenty-five centuries in duration, seeks to set 
aside the facts which antiquarians of the highest char- 
acter have brought to light. Who can believe it? Who 
can for the moment, when once his attention has been 
called to the actual facts, believe that a Christian nation 
capable of building such cities as Palenque and Copan, 
together with the magnificent temples, the wonderful 
towers and altars of sacrifice which abound in Mexico, 
Central America and South America, and building these 
so that they have so far withstood the corrosion of time, 
could have done all this, and yet buried beyond all hope 
of being exhumed, a civilization that was Christian in 
character? Rome fell in the same century that the 
Nephites were slaughtered, but the catacombs recall to 
us the tragic fate of the Christians. No ! The Mormon 
can point to no one unmistakable evidence of any such, 
civilization as the Book of Mormon records, and this 
should forever establish to the thinking Mormon the fact 
that his book is a fraud. 









^1 .'J 




f 


t '$**;" 




^ 


4|3hH^HHH . yj 







ORSON PRATT. 



DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANCIENT AMERICA 135 



CHAPTER X. 

The Book of Mormon and Domestic Life of 
Ancient America. 

For three-quarters of a century it has been the boast 
of Mormonism that most of the alleged facts of history 
and geography, as shown in the book, have been verified 
and confirmed by the archaeological research and dis- 
covery made subsequent to its publication. By no writer 
has this confidence been more emphatically expressed 
than by Orson Pratt. He says : 

In the Book of Mormon are given the names and location 
of numerous cities of great magnitude which once flourished 
among the nations of ancient America. The northern portions 
of South America and also Central America were once the most 
densely populated. Splendid edifices, palaces, towers, forts and 
cities were reared in all directions. A careful reader of that 
interesting book can trace the relative bearings and distances of 
these cities from each other; and if acquainted with the present 
geographical features of the country, he can, by the descriptions 
given in the book, determine very nearly the precise spot of the 
ground which they once occupied. 

Now, since that valuable book made its appearance in print, 
it is a remarkable fact that the mouldering ruins of many 
splendid edifices and towers and magnificent cities have been 
discovered by Catherwood and Stephens in the interior wilds of 
Central America, in the very region where the ancient cities 
described in the Book of Mormon were said to exist. Here,, 
then, is indisputable evidence that this illiterate youth, the trans- 
lator of the Book of Mormon, was inspired of God. Mr. Smith's 
translation describes the region of country where great and 
populous cities once existed, together with their relative bear- 
ings and approximate distances from each other. Years after, 
Messrs. Catherwood and Stephens discovered the ruins of forty- 
four of these very cities and in the very place described. What 



136 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

but the power of God could have revealed beforehand this un- 
known fact, demonstrated years after by actual discovery? 1 

What is here asserted by this religious mountebank, 
without one scintilla of evidence, has become the direct 
belief of thousands who had neither the opportunity nor 
the inclination to inquire into the correctness or incor- 
rectness of his assertions. Mormon polemics have felt 
safe in repeating, after him, Pratt's bald assertions, and 
have not shrunk from taking this position, since not one 
disputant in one hundred has made anything like a care- 
ful study of this phase of the question. Pratt has been 
quoted without fear of being intelligently contradicted. 

We are willing to make this concession, that if this 
oft-repeated claim can be made good — that is, that it 
can be sustained by demonstrated facts — it will form a 
very strong argument, circumstantial it is true, but also 
powerful for the genuineness of the book. But that it 
is true and that the facts have so far been demonstrated, 
we flatly deny, and call attention to the italicized phrases 
in Pratt's quotation, as given above, for the particulars 
of this denial. Of the forty-tzvo cities mentioned in the 
Book of Mormon, not one is described and located, not- 
withstanding Apostle Pratt's assurance to the contrary. 
This statement is made with a full knowledge of its 
import and without fear that any living Mormon can 
use the book to make good Pratt's claims. 

The question narrows itself down to one of veracity. 
Pratt made certain statements when he could not help 
knowing that, so far as the Book of Mormon is con- 
cerned, there was not the least foundation for them. 
That Catherwood and Stephens had made certain dis- 
coveries of splendid edifices and populous cities could be 

1 "Divine Authority," p. 32. 



DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANCIENT AMERICA 137 

true, and yet not one of them need be described in the 
Book of Mormon. The relative directions and approxi- 
mate distances of any cities, other than the city of Jeru- 
salem from whence the Nephites came, are not topics 
that are anywhere discussed within the pages of the 
book. "A careful reader of that interesting book can" 
not "trace the relative bearings and distances of these 
cities from each other," nor can he "very nearly deter- 
mine the precise spot of ground which they once occu- 
pied." And one knows that if this could be done, the 
ordinary diligence of the Mormon hierarchy would have 
it done, and thus at least create a presumption of the 
genuineness of the book. The easiest way out of the 
matter, as well as the one that appears to be correct, is 
to say that Pratt lied, and had no other purpose than to 
mislead the unwary. 

Pratt's assertions we propose to put to the test. And 
in doing this we shall confine ourselves to just two lines 
of thought: Is the Book of Mormon in its teaching con- 
cerning iron and steel in agreement with modern evi- 
dence concerning ancient America, and does the Book of 
Mormon correctly describe the domesticated animals of 
ancient America? This could be much widened so that 
it would include other lines of evidence, but for the sake 
of clearness and concentration we shall keep within the 
limits of the two indicated. 

First: Iron and Steel. 

The Book of Mormon teaches that the art of manu- 
facturing iron and steel was well understood and largely 
employed by the people of ancient America. After the 
Nephites had been "in the promised land" for upwards 
of two hundred years, one of their writers says : "And 
we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of 
the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in 



138 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship 
of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron 
and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of 
tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of 
war; yea, the sharp-pointed arrow, and the quiver and 
the dart, and the javelin and all preparations for war." : 

There are other references made in the book to the 
use and manufacture of iron and steel, but this one is 
enough to show what the book claims for these people 
in the construction of implements of agriculture and 
warfare, and that, too, in no stinted measure. 

To show how hard put are the Mormons in their 
search for antiquities that would tend to confirm the 
teaching of the Book of Mormon, observe the following 
from Etzenhouser's "Palmyra to Independence," 2 a work 
on polemics : 

Priest gives the following account : "In 1826, near Cincinnati, 
Ohio, a gentleman dug a well. At a depth of eighty feet there 
appeared a stump of a tree three feet in diameter and two feet 
high, which had been cut down with an ax. The blows were yet 
visible. The rust of the ax was on the top of the stump when 
discovered." Mr. Priest mentions two more wells : one ninety 
and another ninety-four feet deep, each containing a stump of a 
tree. Of the second he says : "Another stump was found ninety- 
four feet below the surface which had evident marks of an ax ; 
and on its top there appeared as if some iron tool had been 
consumed by rust." 

At first thought it would look as though those people 
who cut down those trees were ultra-aboriginal , consid- 
ering that in the inland region of Cincinnati, Ohio, there 
had been a deposit or drift ancient enough to bury a 
stump to the depth of ninety-four feet. Indeed, the evi- 
dence appears to be far-fetched. And it is none the less 

^arora 1:18. 
2 Pp. 98-100. 



DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANCIENT AMERICA 139 

remarkable, as we read these astounding declarations, 
that these ancient woodsmen were so well supplied with 
axes that with every tree felled by them they could walk 
off and leave the ax on the stump to be consumed with 
rust. He says that it was the "rust of the ax" that 
remained upon the stump. All that we have to say about 
this now is that it takes some pretty deep thinking to 
follow such arguments. Not alone is the Book of Mor- 
mon "a marvelous work and a wonder," but the marvel- 
ous and wonderful extend over into the proof. It were 
cruel to ask them to prove their proof. 

Passing this, however, for the time being, let us see 
what appears to be the consensus of archaeologists on 
this question. We shall keep in mind, of course, that 
by the very terms of the question in dispute we are 
limited to ancient America. It is not a question of the 
discovery and use of iron and steel in any other known 
quarter of the globe, but what do the archaeologists have 
to say about their use on this continent? The affirmative 
of the question, which is the Mormons' side of the con- 
troversy, would hold to a knowledge of the use of iron 
and steel by the aboriginals of America. 

John W. Foster, in his work, "Prehistoric Races of 
the United States," reflects upon the use of iron as a 
civilizing agency. To its use he attributes the steam- 
engine, the railway, the steamship, the magnet, and 
labor-saving machinery of almost every description, and 
then adds, "Possessed of these tremendous resources, 
there is no danger that the enlightened nations will ever 
lapse into barbarism," which but correlates the thought 
that a large knowledge of the use of iron and steel would 
have prevented the aborigines from merging into that 
state of barbarism where they were when discovered in 



140 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

post-Columbian times. But directly on the question he 
has this to offer * : 

In comparing the ancient civilization of the two hemispheres, 
if they were derived from a common origin, there are certain 
arts which it would seem when once acquired would never be 
permitted to lapse. Take, for example, the art of iron smelting, 
and the additional arts of converting the product into steel. 
How manifold its uses and applications! Leaving out those of 
modern date, which are indeed the most wonderful, our ances- 
tors at the dawn of the historic period knew many of its uses. 
The hoe, the ax, the plow, the saw, the sword, the shipbolt, the 
pruning-hook, the needle, the chisel, the chain, the arrow and 
spearhead, and the anchor, were among the forms into which it 
was wrought. What a tremendous implement was placed in the 
hands of man when he could wield a steel ax in the place of a 
stone hatchet ! 

Understand, of course, that Foster is dealing with 
the use of iron as it was known to exist on the eastern 
hemisphere. Egypt, Scythia, Greece and Assyria, and 
even the Phoenicians, are known to have had a use of 
iron, for it is known that iron was employed in the con- 
struction of Solomon's temple. So from this he con- 
cludes that the use of iron reaches back among civilized 
nations to the dawn of the historic era. But of this con- 
tinent he says : "No implement of iron has been found 
with the ancient civilization of America. The Mound- 
builders, as we have seen, wrought as stone the rich 
specular ores of Missouri into various instruments into 
which they ground and polished with elaborate care, 
little conscious that the same material, subjected to a 
high heat, could be cast into any required form, and con- 
verted into more efficient weapons. . . . From these facts 
the inference is inevitable that if this continent was 
peopled by migrations from the Old World, it must have 



l Pp- 331, 332. 



DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANCIENT AMERICA 141 

been at a period remote, and at a time when mankind 
was unacquainted with the use of iron." * 

And to the same effect is Bancroft when he says: 
"As I have already fully stated, none of these nations 
were acquainted with the use of iron in any form," ' 
He denies the correctness of the mention that Tezozomoc 
makes of the Taroscos having - worn steel helmets, by the 
flat denial just given that they did not have an acquaint- 
ance with the use of iron in any shape. So as an archae- 
ologist he places himself on record against the Book of 
Mormon. 

Says Gen. G. P. Thurston, in "The Magazine of 
American History," Vol. XIII., p. 461 : 

The use of iron was generally known to nations of antiquity 
before the historic period. In the eighth generation after Adam 
. . . Tubal Cain was an instructor in the knowledge of brass 
and iron. Job tells of it. It was used in the construction of 
Solomon's temple. It was found in abundance by Layard in the 
palace of Nimrod, in excavating the ruins of Nineveh. It was 
known in western Europe more than twenty-five hundred years 
ago, and at an early period in China ; yet it seems that no pre- 
historic implement or article of iron, or any evidence of manu- 
factured iron, has been found in America, excepting such rude 
implements or ornaments as were made from the native un- 
melted ore. It would seem that almost any communication with 
the outside world would have led to a knowledge of iron, but it 
was probably never known in ancient America. Once known, it 
would doubtless never have been forgotten. Its uses are too 
manifest and native ore too widely distributed. 

Now, these men, as eminent archaeologists, are 
squarely opposed to the pronouncements made in behalf 
of the Book of Mormon. The Mound-builders, the 
Incas, the Peruvians, as well as Pratt's "Central Ameri- 
can States," are placed upon the same level of an igno- 



1 "Prehistoric Races of the United States," 333, 334. 
2 "Native Races," Vol. II., p. 407. 



i42 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

ranee of a working knowledge of iron. Up till now the 
book fails to stand in the light of archaeological research, 
and since their voices are discordant, one or the other is 
wrong. 

This in itself is sufficient to silence the loud boasting 
so often made by these defenders of the Book of Mor- 
mon that archaeology is on their side. The archaeologists 
may be wrong, and the Book of Mormon may be right, 
but what we insist upon is that the Tightness of the Book 
of Mormon is not shozvn by the testimony given by 
archaeologists. As in a former chapter we dealt with 
the several known nations of ancient America in detail, 
so now are we prompted to pursue the same course. In 
keeping with this idea, we shall see what Bancroft has 
to say of the Aztecs : 

The offensive weapons of the Aztecs consisted of bows and 
arrows, slings, clubs, spears, light javelins and swords, and in 
the use of all these the soldiers were skilled. . . . The macana, 
called by the Spaniards espada, was made of tough wood, about 
three and one-half feet long, with a flat blade four fingers in 
width armed upon both sides with sharp pieces of iztli. 1 

Of the knowledge of metals in Yucatan, this same 
author says : 

Iron was not known to the Mayas, and it is not quite certain 
that copper was mined or worked by them. . . . No metallic 
relics have been found among the ruins of Yucatan, and only 
very few in the other Maya regions. . . . The few implements 
in use among the Mayas, such as knives, chisels, hatchets and 
metates, together with the spear and arrowheads, already men- 
tioned, were of flint, porphyry or other hard stone. There is 
little doubt that most of their elaborate sculpture on temples 
and idols was executed with stone implements, since the material 
employed was for the most part soft and easily worked. The 
carvings in the hard sapote wood in Yucatan must have pre- 



1 "Native Races," Vol. II., pp. 408, 409. 



DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANCIENT AMERICA 143 

sented great difficulties to workmen without iron tools ; but the 
fact remains that stone implements, with a few probably of 
hardened copper, sufficed with native skill for all purposes. 1 

Speaking of the ruins of Copan, he says: 

No article of any metal has been found ; yet, as only one 
burial deposit has been opened, it is by no means uncertain that 
gold and copper ornaments were not employed. That iron and 
steel were not used for cutting implements, is clearly proved by 
the fact that hard, flinty spots in the soft stone of the statues 
are left uncut, in some instances, where they interfere with the 
details of the sculpture. 2 

With one more quotation we close this phase of the 
question, with the certainty that it would be difficult to 
attempt the defense of a question more completely at 
variance with the testimony that the witnesses offer than 
is this one of the Mormons' own choosing. Claiming 
the strength of archaeology on their side, they are yet 
beset with as flat denials as men could frame by the use 
of the English language. In his book on "Peruvian 
Antiquities," Mariano Eduard Rivero, collaborator with 
John James Tachudi in this work, says : 

The art of working timber or manner of applying the ma- 
terial to habitual purposes was slightly known among the Peru- 
vians, and it is remarkable that they succeeded in working with 
more facility substances much harder, such as all kinds of stone ; 
and although they readily invented tools to overcome their hard- 
ness, yet -they could not succeed in overcoming the fibrous ten- 
acity of timber. They knew nothing of the saw and hatchet, 
indispensable instruments in carpentry, and with toil they 
wrought out beams and posts in limestone and marble in place 
of timber. . . . Their want of instruments adequate to cutting 
and smoothing the resisting fiber of the timber was the cause 
of the greater part of their idols being in stone ; and the small 
quantity of timber that has come into our possession is dis- 



x Ibid, p. 749-751- 
*Ibid, Vol. IV., p. 102. 



144 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

tinguished by its coarse and clumsy work. . . . The Peruvians 
knew of gold, silver, copper, tin and quicksilver, but iron was 
unknown to them, although very abundant in their country. 1 

Beyond italicizing certain words or phrases in the 
foregoing excerpts, we have sought to take no part in 
this discussion. It is simply Mormonism against the 
science of archaeology. The united testimony of these 
antiquarians could not be more strongly arrayed against 
any one proposition than is this which we have offered 
against the Mormons' thesis that the ancient American 
had large knowledge of the use of iron and steel. These 
elements were unknown to the aborigines, and the cer- 
tainty of these facts places the question beyond the pos- 
sibility of appeal. And if nothing else has been gained 
by our investigation but this, we have silenced these 
wiseacres, who, following the lead of the Pratts and 
Rigdon, have these many years boastfully, stood before 
intelligent audiences, as well as illiterate audiences, con- 
stantly affirming that what the Book of Mormon records 
archaeology is daily proving true. The contrary is true, 
and the book is left without the shadow of proof to 
sustain it, and there we can let the question rest. 

Second: Domestic Animals. 

To the proper definition of the issue that we now 
join with the Book of Mormon, it is incumbent on us 
to ascertain just what the book has to say: "And it came 
to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we 
journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in 
the forest of every kind, both the cow and the ox, the 
ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and 
all manner of animals which were for the use of men." 2 
This was near the year 590 B. C. 



x Jbid, pp. 749-751. 
2 Nephi 17: 25. 



DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANCIENT AMERICA 145 

The Jaredites, who lived here more than two thou- 
sand years before the Christian era, had also "all manner 
of cattle, of oxen and cows and of sheep and swine, and 
of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which 
were useful for the food of man ; and they also had 
horses and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms 
and curnmons, all of which were useful to man, and 
more especially the elephants and cureloms and curn- 
mons." 1 

Thus the Book of Mormon affirms an abundance of 
oxen, cows, sheep, swine and cattle, horses, asses and 
wild goats, such as were known to exist at a later time 
on this continent. We shall not pause to cite the fact 
that these people counted "swine" fit for food, or that 
"oxen" is not equivalent to "cattle," since there were 
"cattle and oxen," or that an "ox" is produced only in 
one way, and that is by a surgical operation; but it is 
more to our liking to show that, if this book claims 
to be a history of the western hemisphere, its alleged 
facts must be substantiated by unquestioned proof, else 
its claim to credence must be abandoned and the book 
be adjudged spurious. For if it is not historical, it is 
spurious, and, if spurious, it must be fraudulent. 

The task before us is one that is comparatively easy. 
In answer to the colonization theory (Chinese), in which 
in some of their writings reference is made to some 
unknown country, but which some believe to be western 
America, or possibly Mexico, John T. Short, in his 
"North Americans of Antiquity," discredits the account 
because of what appears to be some fanciful allusions 
to some of the animals seen in that strange land Among 
the rest were oxen with horns so large as to hold ten 

x Ether 9: 18, 19. 



146 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

bushels. He then adds : "The reference to horses and 
oxen is perplexing, and gives the narrative an air either 
of imposture or mistake, since both were brought to 
America, first by the Spaniards." 1 

Says Foster: 

The great ox (bos. prim.) appeared after the termination of 
the tertiary period, and is supposed by Rutimyer to be the pro- 
genitor of our domestic ox, originating in Europe, and imported 
to this country in historic time. [After tracing the history of the 
horse, this author concludes:] Conspicuously, then, as the horse 
figures in our paleontology, yet he had so long disappeared from 
the country at the time of its discovery that the Indians had no 
tradition of his existence. 2 

Now, it was my belief that every known authority 
would be in agreement with the above statements, but 
to make assurance doubly sure I addressed a letter to 
the United States National Museum, Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, the following being an exact copy of the same: 

Among other claims made for the Book of Mormon is one 
that about the year 590 B. C, when a company of Jews settled 
in America, they ±ound "horses" and "asses," while a company 
that arrived about the year 2500 B. C. found "horses," "asses" 
and "elephants." Believing that you have in your possession the 
best authorities on American paleontology, I respectfully request 
from you information touching the following questions : 

(1) How early does the horse appear on this continent? 

(2) In what period did he become extinct? 

(3) Is there any evidence that he survived the glacial pe- 
riod? 

(4) Did he exist contemporaneously with the elephant on this 
continent? 

(5) Did the domestic ass (eq. Asinus) ever exist on the 
continent at any time between the years 600 B. C. and 420 A. D. ? 

(6) If the elephant and horse, once here, became extinct, 
was it in point of time antedating man's appearance? 

*P. 150. 

2 Foster, p. 90. 



DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANCIENT AMERICA 147 

(7) The Book of Mormon also claims the existence on this 
continent 600 B. C. of "all manner of cattle, of oxen and cows, 
and sheep, swine and goats." Did any of these ever exist on 
the continent? 

You will understand the nature of the above inquiries when 
I tell you that I am making an investigation of the Book of 
Mormon along this line. It purports to be a history of ancient 
America. If the Book of Mormon is true — that is, that it is a 
real history of a real people — then, as it records, the above- 
named animals were on the continent at the time claimed ; but 
if they were not here, and the paleontological facts are in oppo- 
sition to the alleged facts of the book, it must fall. In view of 
the use to which this requested information is to be put, I could 
wish that you would be as explicit in each instance as the infor- 
mation at your command will allow. 

This letter was sent on July 31, 1907, and was an- 
swered by J. W. Gidley, M. S., under date of Aug. 5, 
1907. I shall request my publishers to reproduce the 
letter in its entirety, so that, in the event of this book 
falling into the hands of any Mormon who is fair- 
minded enough to investigate the question from the 
actual desire to know the facts, he will at least have 
before him the reasons upon which we base our con- 
clusion that the book is spurious, and is therefore fraud- 
ulent. The letter follows: 

August 5, 1907. 
S. W. Traum, Richmond, Indiana. 

Dear Sir: — Your letter of July 31, asking for information 
regarding the animal life of this continent during early historic 
times, has been handed me for reply. This I take pleasure in 
doing. 

If the period between the years 600 B. C. and 420 A. D. only 
is involved in your investigation, / can say very positively that 
none of the animals enumerated in your letter are known to 
have existed in America during that time, but at a much earlier 
date, though geologically speaking in comparatively recent times, 
this continent was inhabited by great numbers and varieties of 
horses, elephants, mastodons, camels, bisons, peccaries, and other 



148 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF ' 

animals represented by forms living to-day, all, however-, differ- 
ing in a more or less marked degree from any of the present- 
day species. Of the groups mentioned, representatives of the 
bison and peccary only are known to have survived the great 
changes attending the close of the glacial epoch in America. 

With this understanding, and a considerable step backward 
in time, I will proceed to answer your questions in order : 

(i) Although the early representatives (ancestral forms) of 
the horse have inhabited this continent almost continuously since 
the beginning of the Eocene epoch some three or four million 
years ago, species of the true horse first made their appearance 
in America about the close of the Pliocene epoch not more than 
two hundred and fifty thousand or three hundred thousand 
years ago. (The term "horse," as here used, includes all of the 
horse kind — asses, zebras and horses. It, therefore, has a broader 
meaning than in the popular sense in which it is usually em- 
ployed.) 

(2 and 3) Horses were abundant, being represented by sev- 
eral species, during the Pleistocene epoch of the Quaternary 
age, but they seem to have become extinct, at least over a great 
portion of the United States, about the beginning of the glacial 
period. In certain sections of a portion of the United States 
and in Alaska, however, their remains have been found in sup- 
posed post-glacial deposits. 

(4) Horses (not the domestic varieties) lived contempo- 
raneously with the elephants and mastodons on this continent 
for a considerable period of time, and were represented by 
several distinct species. 

(5) While the ancestors of the living asses and zebras may 
have lived in America in Pliocene or earl}- Pleistocene times, 
the domestic ass was pretty certainly derived from some variety 
of the wild asses now inhabiting portions of Asia. Certainly no 
species of ass existed in America as late as 600 B. C. 

(6) There is no authentic record of either horses or ele- 
phants having survived in America until the first appearance of 
man on this continent. So far as the fossil records go, the last 
of these animals disappeared from this continent at least twenty 
thousand years ago. 

(7) There are no fossil records of any of the animals men- 
tioned in Question No. 7 having existed, in a wild state in 



DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANCIENT AMERICA 149 

America, previous to the advent of man, unless the meaning of 
the term, "all manner of cattle, etc.," is made broad enough to 
include the bison, deer, antelopes, peccaries, etc. All the domestic 
varieties of cattle, "oxen and cows, sheep, swine and goats,'' we 
of Old World origin. 

If I have failed in making myself clear in any point, or 
have not been sufficiently explicit in my answers, I wish you 
to feel perfectly free in making known any further information 
you may desire. Very sincerely yours, 

J. W. GlDLEY, M. S. 

In all probability this volume will reach the hands of 
some reader to whom a word of explanation of geologi- 
cal terms will be a decided help. At any rate, we may 
treat with impunity the charge of pedantry, providing 
what we say shall prove of actual value. 

American geology recognizes the following epochs, 
or periods, in the post-tertiary series of formations: 
Glacial, Champlain, Terrace and Recent and Prehistoric. 
Taking them in reverse order, in the last periods we find 
peat, alkali deposits, cave deposits, artificial mounds, 
sand drifts and alluvial deposits. Because some of these 
have been in operation before our eyes, this epoch means 
the most to the uninitiated into the action of the ele- 
ments engaged in world-building. But beyond them 
there is a formation that must be, and is, accounted for 
otherwise. The most familiar form of it is what is 
commonly known along a river as "the second bottom," 
in which, plateau- like, there lies a tract of land between 
the "bottom" land and the hills. Along the seashore, at 
a height of fifty feet, one hundred feet, and in some in- 
stances even higher, may be found a like formation, but, 
owing .to the kind of deposits, it is determined that it is 
of marine origin. These are the "terraces," an inland 
where the sea has never been ; it is held that the forma- 
tion had its origin in the large excess of water resulting 



150 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

from the descent of the glaciers and their subsequent 
melting. The boulder "drift" is accounted for by the 
movement of the glaciers, while between the glacial 
movement and the period of terrace formation there is 
what is known as the Champlain period, distinguished 
by its peculiar formation of clays and sand. 

Now, Foster says that the remains of the mastodon 
are characteristic of the terrace epoch, and the peat 
swamps are his sepulchre, while the elephant, on the 
other hand, is presented to us as having been found 
mainly in river gravels. He, furthermore, asserts that 
the mastodon whose remains are so plentiful appeared 
subsequent to the elephant and survived his extinction. 
He says, further, that the horse and elephant became 
extinct on the continent in the terrace epoch. Whatever 
may have been the length of time that has elapsed since 
then is quite a different question, but, measured by geo- 
logical epochs, the elephant had come and gone before 
the mastodon appeared. And, as noted above, the mas- 
todon is found in the peat bogs, whose antiseptic ma- 
terial tends to the preservation of the specimens of this 
pachyderm. 

We are now in position where we may collate the 
facts which we have discovered in this brief study of 
American paleontology. We note : 

(i) The horse originated in central Asia in the plio- 
cene-tertiary period. 

(2) He was early domesticated in Egypt, as proved 
by the sculptured horse on the early Egyptian monu- 
ments. 

(3) He is mentioned in the Bible as belonging to the 
eastern continent. 

(4) His value and importance were well understood 
by the Greek and Roman. 



DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANCIENT AMERICA 151 

(5) He was brought to America by the Spaniards in 
1537. So much for the horse as he is now known. 
As for the fossil horse, we learn : 

(1) He belongs to the pliocene-tertiary epoch. 

(2) He was contemporaneous with the elephant and 
possibly with the mastodon on this continent. 

(3) That both the horse and elephant became extinct 
on this continent soon after the glacial epoch. 

(4) That this epoch closed not less than twenty thou- 
sand years ago. 

(5) That man did not appear on the continent till 
about the close of the glacial period. 

(6) That the so-called Nephite colony landed on this 
continent about the year 600 B. C. 

(7) That the Jaredites landed somewhere near the 
year 2500 B. C. 

(8) That the American horse had at the time of the 
Jaredites' landing been extinct not less than sixteen 
thousand years, and at the time of the Nephites' com- 
ing not less than eighteen thousand years. And with 
this arrangement of the facts Mormondom can offer no 
intelligent disagreement, and the facts, as here given, 
establish beyond all possibility of doubt that the book is 
fiction, put forth with cunning imposture, and its only 
reason for acceptance, and, I was going to say, for its 
early prevalence, is in the ignorance of the man who 
listens to the specious reasoning by which its claims are 
sought to be established. At no point along the way is 
its boasted assertion defended by known facts. 

Hence, since the book is wrong in its alleged geo- 
graphical, topographical, ethnological, philological, do- 
mestic, social and religious facts, it fails to meet the test 
to which an accredited history would yield, and failing 
in that it is manifestly not a real history of a real people, 



152 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

and if not a history it is spurious, and being spurious it 
is fraudulent, and being fraudulent it can not be con- 
sistently claimed that God had anything to do with it. 
The line of reasoning which we are now bringing to a 
close forever condemns it in the mind of an intelligent 
Mormon, and, seeing this, his own sense of right and 
wrong should lead him once for all to renounce his 
allegiance to its claims. These observations combine in 
strengthening our belief that the book is of modern 
origin, and the claim that it is anything else must fail 
for lack of support of accredited testimony. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD 153 



CHAPTER XL 

The Mormon Priesthood. 

Ishmaelitish in spirit, with its hand against every 
man and against every church, intolerant, bigoted and 
perverse, the Mormon priesthood walks its chosen path. 
Claiming for itself the authority of Heaven in its minis- 
trations in the Lord's work, it deems a like service by 
the non-Mormon a usurpation. It professes alarm for 
the people who are deceived by these trespassers in 
office, and unsparingly condemns Protestant and Cath- 
olic alike. These, they say, are trees which the heavenly 
Father has not planted, and by him will be rooted up. 
They are, so it is claimed, corrupt trees and bitter foun- 
tains, from which sources can not issue any good. These 
are they who have the "form of godliness, but deny the 
power thereof." It is the Mormon alone who in this 
day of grace is entitled to claim authority from heaven. 

We propose to take them on their own ground and 
to make an examination of their pompous assertions, 
and in doing this we confidently anticipate the result 
that they shall be left without any authority. Fortu- 
nately for our investigation, they have given rather full 
exposition of their views, rendering it highly improbable 
that we shall misunderstand them. Without any known 
intention of misrepresenting them in their large assump- 
tions, we shall undertake to show that their assumptions 
are baseless and their authority a fiction. 

Elder Wm. H. Kelly has devoted a .volume of about 
four hundred pages to the one subject of "Presi- 
dency and Priesthood," and as his treatment is exhaus- 



154 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

tive and as nearly universally acceptable to the Mormons 
themselves as are the writings of any other author 
known to us, we shall make copious extracts from this 
work, and shall allow it to stand as the affirmative of the 
proposition which we shall deny. Kelly has endeavored 
to establish the Mormon hierarchy on solid ground, and 
has done it to his satisfaction; the foundations of Mor- 
monism touching this subject of its priesthood is the 
main question now up for our study. 

It is quite generally known that among these people 
there are two sets of officers, belonging respectively to 
the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, but differing 
from each other in rank, power and glory. It is alleged 
that both priesthoods were conferred upon the Christian 
ministry. Of the Aaronic priesthood claim is made that 
there came a change of duties under the law to duties 
under the gospel, but duties that were inferior in rank 
to those performed by the Melchizedek priesthood; the 
latter was conceived to deal with spiritual duties. 

Mr. Kelly, in arguing the authoritativeness of the 
•claims made for the Melchizedek priesthood, asks a 
series of questions 1 : "If the Melchizedek priesthood 
is not the one by which the gospel should be preached 
and its laws administered, why did God introduce and 
authorize men to work by it in the time of our Saviour?" 
This question can for the present be disposed of by ask- 
ing another: Where is the proof that God was a party 
to any such an arrangement? Again he asks: "If the 
gospel could have been properly preached and admin- 
istered without it, why was its use established?" This 
question is no more difficult than is the one that inquires, 
Where is the proof that its use was established and 



l See "Presidency and Priesthood," p. 6. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD 155 

that the gospel was preached and administered with it? 
Then he asks: "If Christ and his ministry were empow- 
ered with this priesthood as an essential means of pre- 
senting the gospel system, who shall be so presumptuous 
as to affirm that the gospel can be acceptably adminis- 
tered without it in any age?" Mr. Kelly should pardon 
us for insisting upon proof that Christ and his ministry 
were so empowered. In the absence of proof, we can 
not be held to an intelligent acceptance of the Mormon 
position, and until such proof is forthcoming, we may, 
not without good reason, hold the claim to be unwar- 
ranted in the premises. 

The course of reasoning by which these assumptions 
are held valid is, first, the unchangeableness of God ; 
second, the antiquity of the gospel, and, third, the be- 
stowal of both these priesthoods in the time of Aaron. 
These three questions cover the ground for them, and, 
such being the case, afford us a definite line along which 
we can follow them. 

First, the unchangeableness of God. 

If there is any force in the doctrine of the unchange- 
ability of God touching this question, then there never 
was a time that the Aaronic and Melchizedek priest- 
hoods did not exist side by side, and there never will be 
a time when they will not be coexistent. Furthermore, 
to tie God down to the almightiness of his own un- 
changeability is to forever close all avenues for him to 
take the initiative in ever introducing anything more 
perfect, or more nearly perfect, than has always existed. 
Confessedly, in the light of the Scripture, the Levitical 
priesthood was marked with some kind of imperfection, 
which made necessary the coming of another priesthood 
to bring about perfection. But the unchangeableness of 
God, if the Mormon position is correct, would make the 



156 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

one just as perfect at the first as at the last. The writer 
of the letter to the Hebrews says : "For the priesthood 
[not priesthoods] being changed, there was made of 
necessity a change also of the law." 1 Hence, when 
it is affirmed that God changes not, and upon it we build 
the two priesthoods, it is done in the face of the Scrip- 
ture which expressly declares that the priesthood was 
changed — not a change of the occupants in office, but a 
change of the priesthood itself; and this, too, because 
the Levitical priesthood could make nothing perfect. 

Now let us see what this Mormon writer works out 
of his premise that God changes not : 

This being true, and he (God) has ordained a means of 
salvation, a plan, a system and a power for its administration, 
at any tim2 or place, then it is his plan to-day; otherwise he has 
changed his once declared plan or system. If it has been 
changed, where is the law revealing that change? what is the 
plan now? did he introduce the last one? If he did not, who 
did? Does the one extant resemble the ancient one? All these 
are legitimate suggestive inquiries that naturally arise in a reflec- 
tive mind and are entitled to an answer. 2 

Second: We now see how the doctrine of the un- 
changeability of God dovetails into the doctrine of the 
antiquity of the gospel, for if the gospel saves men to- 
day, and this is the means that is ordained of God for 
that end, then it follows, since God changes not, that 
men have been saved by the gospel in the ancient days 
through the administration of these priesthoods, and of 
course it was the same authority that administered it 
then as now. If the inference drawn by Kelly in the 
above series of queries is correct, it will do no violence 
for us to ask them of him, except that we shall reverse 



*Heb. 7: 12. 

2 "Presidency and Priesthood," p. 6. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD 157 

the order, and instead of making it simply hypothetical, 
as did he, shall attempt an answer to them. The ques- 
tions are just as pertinent when asked in this reverse 
order. We may agree with him that they "are legiti- 
mate suggestive inquiries, that naturally arise in a re- 
flective mind," and hold with him that "they are entitled 
to an answer." Take his last question in the series: 
"Does the one [plan, system] extant now resemble the 
ancient one?" We reply: "The priesthood being changed, 
there is made of necessity a change also of law." l 
"Did he [God] introduce the last one? If not, who 
did?" To this we reply: "He taketh away the first that 
he may establish the second." ' To the question, 
"What is the plan now?" we say; "A better covenant, 
which was established upon better promises." 3 "If 
it has been changed, where is the law revealing the 
change?" Answer: Hebrews, eighth chapter. Finally: 
"This being true, and he has ordained a means of salva- 
tion, a plan, a system and a power for its administration, 
at any time or place, then that is his plan to-day ; other- 
wise he has changed his once declared plan or system." 
But, Mr. Kelly, God has ordained a gospel plan of salva- 
tion, and, this being a change, it at once explodes your 
hypothesis of the unchangeableness of God and knocks 
into smithereens your fiction that the gospel was authori- 
tatively preached before the authoritative announcement 
of the terms of pardon on the day of Pentecost. 

Third, the bestowal of the priesthoods. 

The next step in the Mormon plan is to discover 
wherein is resident these two priesthoods at the begin- 
ning of the Christian dispensation, so that when they 



Web. 


7: 12. 


2 Heb. 


10: 8. 


3Heb. 


8:6. 



158 MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

should finally be transmitted to the Saints, they might 
know assuredly that they had been properly derived. 
Hence the Aaronic priesthood is traced back to John the 
Baptist, and the Melchizedek to Christ, but more latterly 
from Peter, James and John, who transmitted them to 
Joseph Smith, Jr. 

These priesthoods descend in the following steps of 
gradation : The First Presidency, the Twelve, the Sev- 
enty, the High Priests, the Bishoprick and Elders ; these 
are in the Melchizedek order, and as members of that 
order they are entitled to officiate in all the offices of the 
church. In the Aaronic priesthood are Priests, Teachers 
and Deacons. "No man has a legal right to this office, 
to hold the keys of this priesthood, except he be a literal 
descendant of Aaron." 1 He is entitled to administer 
fn outward ordinances — the letter of the gospel — the 
baptism of repentance for remission of sins. He has not 
the power to lay on hands for the gift of the Holy 
Ghost, and is himself only eligible to the office as he is 
inducted into it by one of the superior priesthood. 

Now, according to this Mormon rigmarole, John as 
a "priest" could officiate at the baptism of Christ, but as 
joined to that is the laying on of hands for the gift of 
the Holy Ghost, which John could not do, and without 
which a person is not saved, it follows that Christ has 
gone to hell, having been imposed on by one who had 
only part authority. John was not a high priest, for that 
office was filled in the days of John, and death alone was 
the occasion for the entrance of the new man into the 
office. The unchangeable God, who has never had any 
other way to save men and to administer the ordinances 
of the gospel, allowed his Son to be thus deceived. No 



l D. & C, Sec. civ., p. 290. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD 159 

sane man can accept such monstrous conclusions, and 
yet they are the inevitable deductions from Mormon 
premises. Of course John had authority to baptize, but 
it was independent of Sidney Rigdon's notions of either 
an Aaronic or Melchizedek priesthood. 

John alone of his age had been selected to be the 
representative of the Aaronic priesthood; all the rest 
belonged to the higher offices. Christ in the flesh was a 
Melchizedek priest, as were also the apostles of Christ. 
Now, who ordained Christ by the laying on with hands? 
John could not, consistently with his "priest's" office, 
and if God did it then, without the laying on of hands, 
then the unchangeableness of God would lead him to 
treat us all alike now. 

The crudeness of this Mormonic conception is seen 
when contrasted with apostolic utterances on the subject 
of the priesthood. Says the writer of the Hebrew letter: 
"For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, see- 
ing that there are priests that offer gifts according to 
the' law." 1 And the whole tenor of Scripture teach- 
ing is to show that there is a chronological sequence in 
the offices of Christ in the order of the familiar phrase, 
"prophet, priest and king." In his lifetime he was a 
prophet, and confined his ministrations to that particular 
kind of work. When he died he offered himself as a 
sacrifice, and then, having "somewhat to offer," he en- 
tered into the office of priest, for which office he had not 
been qualified without his earthly training. And it is 
only a fair conclusion to decide that without this train- 
ing he had been unable to serve in the priesthood. He 
took on himself the nature of man, and not of angels, 
"for it became him, ... in bringing manv sons unto 



1 Ueb. 8:4; 7: 14. 



i6o MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect 
through suffering. . . . Wherefore, in all things it be- 
hooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he 
might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things 
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of 
the people. For in that he hath suffered, he is able to 
succor them that are tempted." 1 

Hence, we discover that the purpose of this priest- 
hood is to make expiation for the sins of the people. 
"Expiation," and not "reconciliation," is the right word. 
To reconcile sins is nonsense ; a sinner may be recon- 
ciled, but not his sins. Sins may be expiated, blotted 
out, or remembered against us no more, but reconciled — 
never. Expiation is Christ's act ; being reconciled is 
man's. To the end that Christ might be qualified to 
serve in the priest's office, it was necessary that by ex- 
perience he should know the needs of his people, and, as 
said above, that he "have somewhat to offer," and both 
these ends were gained by his passion. That which dis- 
tinguishes his priesthood is not its name alone, but its 
character. The Aaronic, or Levitical, priesthood could 
serve the Jew only, but Christ, like Melchizedek, could 
go out to one of another nation. To have this priest- 
hood at all he had to become a man, and to have it for- 
ever he had to be divine. Like himself, his priesthood 
is at once human and divine. Without his offering no 
sin could be permanently taken away, and without his 
intercession there is no way of access to God. The 
problem of expiation and intercession is the "mystery of 
godliness; God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the 
Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the Gentiles, be- 
lieved on in the world, and received up into glory." ' 



1 Heb. 2: 10, 17, 1! 
2 i Tim. 3: 16. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD 161 

Touching this question, we conclude: The only help 
that we have is in Christ. It is of a character that he 
can not delegate it to any one else in all the universe. 
The service that he renders had been impossible without 
his scars. That privilege and that power cost him his 
life. Without the expiating power of that blood there 
is hope for neither Mormon nor Gentile. And in all of 
the "offices" in the apostolic church there can not be 
found a single man who laid claim to such honors. Such 
boastful pretensions arose only at a later day, and, allow- 
ing the New Testament to be our guide, Mormonism is 
absolutely without precedent or teaching upon which to 
base its unwarranted assumptions. 

Says Kelly, "As confirmatory evidence upon this 
question, I cite the testimony of the Fathers, some of 
whom were contemporary with the apostles," but it is 
noticeable that he at once quotes the Honorable and 
Reverend A. P. Perciville, B. C. S., chaplain in ordinary 
to the Queen, in his "Apology for Apostolic Succession." 
Without at this time citing the quotations that are drawn 
from this source, let us hear Whitmer thus fighting 
Mormon with Mormon : 

Some of the brethren have gone outside the written word 
of God, and accepted as evidence histories that were written 
350 to 400 years after Christ, to prove that high priests were in 
the church of Christ. This seems strange to me. They have 
quoted from the history of St. Jerome, who was secretary to 
the Pope of Rome about 382 years after Christ. I should not 
wonder if the apostolic church did have high priests and many 
other offices that were abominable before God, after they had 
drifted into error like the Latter-day Saints have. They have 
also quoted Theodoret, who died 457 years after Christ. His 
writings extend from A. D. 325 to A. D. 429. My authority for 
the above is Lippincott's "Biographical Dictionary." 

Now, shall we take such evidence as this to prove the office 
of high priest being in the church when it was in its purity, 



162 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

when the written word of God mentions all the church officers 
in many places and says nothing about a single high priest? 
Nay, verily ! As for me, I must take the Scriptures for my 
authority. I can not understand how any person can claim that 
an important office, like the high priest's should be, or was in the 
church of Christ when it was in the true faith, when nothing 
is said in the Scriptures about it. The Scriptures were given 
by inspiration of God ; and do you suppose that God would 
leave out of his word the great office of high priest, if they were 
to be in the church of Christ? Of course not. It is charging 
God foolishly to believe that he would leave out of his word 
this office or any other that he intended should be in the 
church. 1 

The probable objection that the Josephite will here 
make is that he refuses to accept Whitmer as authority 
on this subject. So much of consolation as he may be 
able to find by the adoption of such a course we shall 
not begrudge him. We feel so certain that Whitmer has 
the only defensible position that can be taken in this 
controversy that we have taken the liberty of quoting" 
the full extract that appears above, and now that it is 
before the reader, we confidently commend the sanity of 
Whitmer's reasoning as opposed to the specious plead- 
ing of Apostle Kelly and his kind. 

1 Whitmer's "Address to Believers," pp. 65, 66- 



MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 163 



CHAPTER XII. 
The Mormon Priesthood — Continued. 

"And no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he 
that is called of God, as was Aaron." 1 Having been 
so "called," the Mormon is a part of the regularly con- 
stituted and ordained ministry of God. The universality 
of this Scripture's acceptance among the Mormons, even 
among the recusant sects, shows that the teaching is of 
common origin, and that the doctrine of a special and 
immediate call is a strong favorite among them. They 
are not the first to have made such claims, nor are they 
the first who have declared as a part of their belief that 
whom the Lord wants to serve him he specifically "calls" 
to the work. Notably did this doctrine prevail in the 
days when Mormonism was young. It less widely pre- 
vails to-day, or else the terminology employed has been 
differently construed. Be that as it may, the Mormon 
claims to have been called of God, as was Aaron. 

In opening the question in dispute, we should like to 
inquire what good end is gained by such a "call" ? Two 

x The Mormon delights to speak of his qualification for the office of 
the high priesthood, and since they one and all of every sect among them 
use this reference taken from Heb. 5:4, it certainly can not be that 
they have overlooked the qualifications of the high priest. A careful 
reading of the context will place a quietus upon their groanings. Let us 
see what the Word says: "For every high priest, being taken from among 
men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer 
both gifts and sacrifices for sins: ... as for the people, so also for him- 
self, to offer for sins. And no man taketh this honor, but when he is 
called of God, even as was Aaron." Then the apostle boasts that in this 
respect Christ qualified. There is no ground upon which the Mormon 
can stand, in pretending to fill this office, either as to a call for the office 
or his qualification to fill the office. 



164 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

probable answers appear: First, the qualification of the 
preacher himself for his appointed duties, and, second, 
the impression that could possibly be made upon those 
to whom this divinely appointed messenger comes. The 
Mormon comes to us with the claim that he has such a 
call. If so, there should be' some evidence that he has 
been divinely sent. If his instructions are to be re- 
garded, it is absolutely necessary that the "call" be 
authenticated. To reject his teaching is criminal or it 
is not criminal. On the ground that it is criminal, that 
criminality arises through neglect of or despite to the 
authority that has sent him ; but that authority should 
be rendered manifest before it is criminal to reject it, 
else believing any man who so claims to have been sent 
there is a danger that the person addressed be imposed 
upon. Hence it is required of the claimant of such a 
call that he has the "authority." 

The Mormon seeks to vindicate his "call" by his fur- 
ther claim that he has certain powers, such as speaking 
in tongues, healing, interpreting, etc., etc. When the 
appeal is made for him to make good that claim, he 
seems to be unable to establish his authority. This point 
I made with a disputant in debate. He was afflicted 
with a nervous indigestion, so that with difficulty could 
he pursue the arduous task he had engaged upon. It 
was apparent that the preparation for, and the anxiety 
in, the discussion had very materially aggravated his 
malady. I made my appeal to him, that since he believed 
in the possibility of "healing," and that to my positive 
knowledge there was present one of his brethren who 
had told me that his "gift" was "healing," that all con- 
ditions conspired to a remarkable demonstration of his 
position, I twitted him (and the moderator of the debate 
ruled me "out of order") for going from home to home 



MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 165 

with his box of Egg-O-See and compelling the sisters 
to cook for him soft-boiled eggs, whereas, in just a few 
moments, by the simple application of that power that 
they claim above all others, he could be restored to good 
health. At the same time there was in the community 
a very estimable lady of the Mormon faith who had 
previous to the debate, and even during the debate, been 
"anointed," and yet she did not recover. She has since 
deceased. I then quoted a sentence from the Hebrew 
and another from the Greek, but both from the Bible, 
and called upon him, or any of his upward of twenty 
preaching brethren who Were present, to give the inter- 
pretation. But neither he nor they could "interpret" 
either the one or the other. Like the fabled pot of gold 
at the foot of the rainbow, so their boasted miracles are 
just a little further on. 

But how does he demonstrate his claims ? 1 By his 
teaching? Then, how shall we account for the contra- 
dictory doctrines that are taught? It is too late in the 
day to require me to establish that the Brighamites and 
Josephites are at swords-points, and yet, if they are to 
be believed, we must assure ourselves that the Holy 
Spirit teaches them both. To which, of course, the 
Saints will reply that there is no more of uniformity 
among the Protestants generally than there is among 
them. In answer to this, we will say it is incredible of 
belief that, so long as the Bible is given any place of 
authority, that any sect, either Mormon or Protestant, 
can get a communication from the Spirit that is con- 
tradictory to the Word. There is no man who can claim 
for himself a "revelation" of any kind, and at the same 
time maintain its credibility, so long as it stands in direct 



1 In working out this chapter I have adapted Alexander Campbell's 
teachings on the "call" in general to the Mormons' "call" in particular. 



1 66 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

opposition to the express statement of t~e word of God. 
And it is no less reprehensible among Protestants than 
among the Mormons. But how does he prove his 
claims ? By swearing to them ? Then let it be said that 
men have been known to perjure themselves for less 
reason than that indicated here. Further, the irrecon- 
cilability of the claims of the Josephites with those of 
the Brighamites still stands. He may say that the Holy 
Spirit is moving him, but it is difficult to see how the 
Holy Spirit is moving both of them. They can not 
prove it by the courts of the land, for when in the one 
instance the Josephites will win in a lawsuit, the Brig- 
hamites can get it when the higher court gets the ques- 
tion. Again, there have been instances where among 
their own men, having been "called of God as was 
Aaron," that they refused the office on the ground that 
they had no such a call. 1 That is, God himself was 
unable to bring the evidence strong enough to assure 
the individual whom the church believed to have had a 
call. What we are after is a divine confirmation of their 
superior claims, and there is nothing else that will sat- 
isfy. 

As another possible good that may accrue from hav- 
ing a direct call is the qualification that it will give the 
preacher for his work. But in what respect? Does it 
qualify him to discourse upon the Christian religion? 
In the debate already so frequently referred to in these 
pages there was occasion to bring this to the test. Inad- 
vertently my opponent conceded the correctness of a cer- 
tain conclusion which I had reached. Refusing to grant 
to me any "authority," since I had had no "call," I 
answered him something like this: "Good and just as my 



r As, e. g., Apostle Derry. 



MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 167 

opponent is, I am glad that God has so far helped him 
in his deficiency as to enable him, with seventeen years 
the start of me, with his helps, such as apostles, prophets, 
evangelists, teachers, deacons, pastors, miracles, gifts of 
healing, helps, governments and diversities of tongues, 
presidencies, patriarchs, high counselors, high priests 
and priests, to come to the conclusion, finally, that I 
understand what I was talking about, and that he knew 
it, before my head was as big as a grape." Though he 
was himself the subject of a "call," yet the Adams Ex- 
press Company found itself being enriched in carrying 
books to him, that he might prepare for the debate, and 
he applied himself assiduously from the 1st of May till 
the 27th of July of the same year to get ready for a 
man who was some seventeen years his junior, and who' 
was to make his maiden effort in public discussion. The 
fact is, the best inspiration that any Mormon, or any 
one else for that matter, ever had was good preparation. 
Lacking this, their sermons are after the Mother Hub- 
bard plan — they cover everything and touch no vital 
point. 

Still, he says that he had a "call." Did he hear a 
voice? This can be answered yes or no. If yes, how 
did he know whose voice it was? and, if no, then why 
does he say that he heard it? In the primitive church 
the Lord "called" a company of men, and when their 
"call" was questioned, they could prove it. In some 
instances the confirmation came before the preaching. 
Being qualified to speak, they could also confirm the 
testimony that they gave. 

But is there any Saint who was "called of God as 
was Aaron"? It is true that they claim as much, but 
that does not necessarily make the claim true. They 
assert that all other ministers are without authority, and, 



168 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

to use their favorite expression, "they have the form of 
godliness, but deny the power thereof." We think that 
we are in possession of facts that show that the Mormon 
possesses neither the form nor the power. In making 
such an assertion, they have reason to ask us for the 
proof of same; this we shall now attempt to give. 

The Aaronic priesthood, in this new dispensation, 
was said to have been first conferred upon Joseph Smith 
and Oliver Cowdery, and that, too, at the hands of an 
angel. But Joseph Smith is of the tribe of Ephraim, 1 
whereas God designed that this priesthood should re- 
main in the possession of the sons of Aaron and mem- 
bers of the tribe of Levi. (See Num. 3: 10; Deut. 21: 
5; Num. 16:40; 18:7; Heb. 7:13.) And so deter- 
mined was God that this tribal regulation should be 
respected that he decreed the penalty of death upon any 
who sought to serve in that office. But it wiU be said 
that God did not punish, with such dire affliction, Joseph 
Smith, Jr., which only shows that there was no such 
office at the time in which he might serve, and for the 
lack of opportunity he never officiated in that capacity. 
Joseph Smith, Jr., just lied, and whoever sins in that 
particular way has an end appointed him (Rev. 2II8). 1 

But this is not proof for the Saints, so we shall pro- 
ceed to convict this arch-conspirator of the crime of 
fraud, using his own books as the sources of our proof. 
It has ever been the privileged claim of these people that 
the priesthood is conferred with the laying on of hands, 
and without this there is no semblance of authority. 
That Smith was so ordained, as they assert, is shown by 
the historian's declaration : "Upon you, my fellow-serv- 
ants, in the name of the Messiah, I confer the priest- 



a See "Book of Mormon Vindicated," p. 52. 



MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 169. 

hood of Aaron." The angel who did the ordaining gave 
additional information that he was acting under the 
direction of Peter, James and John, and that at a later 
time, since these three held the keys of the Melchizedek 
priesthood, would they duly confer this priesthood upon 
Joseph and Oliver. Hence, if the priesthood of what- 
ever name can be conferred only by the laying on of 
hands, and if Joseph and Oliver ever get it, they will 
get it in that way. 

In a revelation dated September, 1830, 1 the Lord 
(?) enumerates the messengers who have at various 
times appeared to Joseph Smith. There was Moroni, 
who gave the plates, or, rather, showed him where they 
were ; there was John, "which John I have sent to ordain 
you into the first priesthood which you have received, 
that you might be called and ordained, even as Aaron;" 
"and also with Peter, James and John, who I have sent 
you, by whom I have ordained you, and confirmed you 
to be apostles and especial witnesses of my name, and 
bear the keys of your ministry." If, now, these men 
were ordained by the angel, by John, Peter, James and 
John, and it can only be done by the laying on of hands, 
then unquestionably these individuals laid their hands on 
Joseph and Oliver. 

Now says Joseph: "Accordingly we went and were 
baptized; I baptized him and afterward he baptized me; 
after which I laid my hands upon him and ordained him 
to the Aaronic priesthood; afterzvards he laid his hands 
on me and ordained me to the same priesthood — for we 
were so commanded" 2 

The two above citations, the one from the Book of 
Covenants and the other from the history of the prophet, 

>D. & C, Sec. 26: 2. 

2 Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet." 



370 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

^establish, so far as Mormon literature can establish any- 
thing, that Smith and Cowdery laid claim to having been 
ordained to the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods. 
There is a possible quibble over the word "ordain," but 
whether there is employed this word or the word "con- 
fer," the gist of the matter is that the divine afflatus was 
poured into these men by the laying on of hands. And 
if it does not mean this in the one instance, it does not 
in the other. And exactly the same thing that it was 
claimed the angel came to do was the thing that Joseph 
and Oliver said they did to each other. 

Joseph says : "It was on the 15th day of May that we 
were baptized and ordained under the hand of the mes- 
senger!' It must have been under the hand of the 
messenger, else the ordination would amount to nothing. 
And what was done in the one instance was done in the 
other ; and while Joseph says the act was performed by 
the angel, elsewhere we read: "I also was present with 
Joseph when the higher or Melchizedek priesthood was 
■conferred from on high. This priesthood was then con- 
ferred on each other by the will and commandment of 
•God." 

The summary of our contention is this: If they were 
ordained to the Aaronic priesthood by the angel, then 
they were not ordained by each other after their bap- 
tism, and their show of ordination was the hollowest 
pretense. If they then ordained each other, and that 
was the way that they were inducted into their office, 
then neither one ever had the Aaronic priesthood, for 
clearly a man can not impart something that he never 
had. And if Peter, James and John did, by the laying on 
of hands, bestow upon them the Melchizedek priesthood, 
then again was it the hollowest mockery that they made 
a show of ordaining one another to that priesthood; and 



MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 171 

if they were not so ordained by the apostles, but instead 
did it themselves, then again was it a pretense that they 
conferred the distinctions of that priesthood upon each 
other, even by the will and commandment of God, for 
clearly even God himself can not make it possible for a 
man to bestow something that he does not possess. 
Manifestly a man can not confer something which he 
does not have himself. This is sufficient to show that, 
by their own account of the bestowal of these priest- 
hoods, the whole Mormon aggregation is without any 
authority, and consequently the arrogant assumptions of 
these men are worth nothing except for purposes of 
deception. 

Having now seen that the system is itself based upon 
a fiction, we shall find it interesting to make note of the 
Lord's (?) method in choosing the twelve apostles of 
the new dispensation. So far as we have been able to 
see, the record does not confirm their oft-asserted boast- 
ing that they were "called of God as was Aaron." At 
Kirtland, Ohio, on the 14th of February, 1834, a confer- 
ence was called by Joseph Smith for the purpose of 
laying before the elders the subject of choosing the 
twelve. Joseph stated that the first business of the 
meeting was for the three witnesses (Cowdery, Whit- 
mer and Harris) of the Book of Mormon to pray, each 
one, and then to proceed to choose twelve men from the 
church as apostles, to go to all nations, kindreds, tongues 
and peoples. The three witnesses, namely, Oliver Cow- 
dery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris, united in 
prayer. They were then blessed by the laying on of 
hands of the Presidency, and then proceeded to make 
choice of the tzvelve as follows : Lyman E. Johnson, 
Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, David W. Patton, 
Luke Johnson, Orson Hyde, Wm. E. McLellin, John 



272 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

F. Boynton, Orson Pratt, William Smith, Thomas B. 
Marsh and Parley P. Pratt. 

It appears that two of these men, Orson Pratt and 
Thomas B. Marsh, were not present at the time to par- 
ticipate in the service of that day, or, rather, days, for 
the service lasted over the greater part of two days, and 
the absentees received their ordination and blessing- in 
the next April. It is almost a waste of time to call the 
Saints' attention to the poor selection that was here 
made, for as time went on the most of these men fell 
from grace. Doubtless the Saints will have their reply 
in readiness, for they are well informed along the line 
of like offenses, and will say that so did Judas Iscariot 
betray his Lord, as did the chief apostle Peter deny him, 
and that not one of them was present when the time 
came for Christ to tread the wine-press alone. This can 
be granted, but in granting it let us say that the offenses 
of these men came before their "endowment," after 
which they were true till death, whereas among the 
Mormons the time of the "endowment" was at the very 
beginning of the offences of which the twelve were 
guilty. 

Of the witnesses, Whitmer, Cowdery and Harris 
were expelled ; so also were Marsh, McLellin and Boyn- 
ton ; Young, Kimball, Hyde, the Pratts and Johnson 
went into polygamy, and all this after the "endowment," 
which occurred in March of 1836. But what is to the 
point in our observations is, that the twelve were not 
chosen by the Lord, but by Cowdery, Whitmer and Har- 
ris, the Mormon history giving us the facts. But as the 
three got their authority from Joseph and the Presi- 
dency, who presumed to bestow something that they did 
not possess, it is again determined that the whole struc- 
ture rests upon a very unstable foundation, and bears a 



MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 173 

strong unlikeness to the pompous assertion that these 
men were "called of God as was Aaron." 

Just prior to the prophet's death the Presidency con- 
sisted of Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon and Joseph 
Smith, Jr. Hyrum and Joseph were killed at Carthage, 
111., leaving Rigdon to assume control. Most of the 
members of the twelve were away evangelizing, and 
those who were present did not take kindly to Rigdon's 
leadership. Rigdon claimed to have seen in a vision that 
a new leader should be appointed, and quite naturally 
the Lord decided upon Rigdon for the station of honor. 
But when Brigham Young appeared (he was the presi- 
dent of the twelve, hence of lesser rank than Rigdon) 
he was, nevertheless, able to persuade the Saints that 
God's choice was Brigham. According to the Joseph- 
ites, this was downright usurpation on the part of the 
twelve that he should thus "fry the coop" with the 
whole priesthood, but they were powerless to change the 
result. 

The church was now prophetless, and, according to 
the established order, it would remain so unless God 
should see fit to give it a new "head." The power of 
the priesthood is operative downward ever, hence men 
of inferior rank could not legitimately supply the vacan- 
cies occurring in the superior offices. 

By 185 1 the "body" began to hunt around for a 
"head." . By November of that year one Jason W. 
Briggs got a "revelation," in which the Lord disclaimed 
any connection with the doctrine of celestial marriages, 
and, furthermore, declared himself favorable to choos- 
ing "the seed of Joseph Smith" (he omitted the word 
"Jr.," thinking that by this time the people generally 
would know to whom he referred). Briggs began to 
tell others of the "revelation," and, to use their own 



174 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

words on the subject, these others "began to fall in with 
the revelation." Signs now appeared among them, such 
as the speaking in tongues, and the Lord was attesting 
the genuineness of the "work" just as formerly he had 
established the genuineness of the "work" of "King 
Strang" and his followers. The Mormons have never 
been lacking in "signs." 

Anti-polygamy became the new bond of union, and 
found its expression at last in the organization of the 
Reorganized Church. W. B. Smith, Joseph's brother, 
had been more or less powerful till this time in holding 
these anti-polygamous forces together. Briggs, above 
mentioned, became the historian of the new organization, 
and in tracing the history of those eventful days was 
himself impressed with the fact that all precedents were 
being sent sky-high. All other assemblages or bodies, he 
says, "convened and acted under the call of a leader, or 
head; but this acknowledged none. Others were the 
results of a professed head; this one was a preceding, or 
preparatory to an expected head." 

The pamphlet from which the above quotation is 
made appeared under the title, "A Word of Consolation 
to the Scattered Saints," and was prepared for publica- 
tion by Jason W. Briggs, Zenas H. Gurley and John 
Harrington. The one all-engrossing topic with these 
"scattered saints" was the priesthood. As we have seen, 
the matter had been cleared up for Briggs by the means 
of the "revelation," but the majority was floundering 
around in doubt that the "priesthood" remained after 
"the rejection of the church." They turned aside from 
Rigdon after this fashion : "There was one member of 
the quorum of the First Presidency left to whom be- 
longed the right of presiding by virtue of his authority 
as counselor. But he, claiming his right under the cover 



MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 175 

of some performance unknown to the law of God, was 
rejected by the voice of the people." Man-made, he was 
by man unmade. The historian sees that in so doing 
they undoubtedly deprived him of the rights to which 
he was entitled by his ordination, but finds his way out 
of the difficulty by saying that "the highest authority pre- 
sides -always" Presumably, higher than Rigdon was the 
"voice of the people." 

In April, 1853, a conference was held with the church 
known as the Yellowstone Branch. In the March just 
preceding Zenas Gurley had received a revelation telling 
him that it was the will of God for these people to 
organize anew. He was deterred from reading the rev- 
elation at the conference because there came into the 
meeting a Brighamite in an intoxicated condition. But 
the next morning they were told to organize according 
to the "revelation of March 20." This was the revela- 
tion that had been received by Gurley. On that morning 
there was appointed a committee, consisting of Ethan 
Griffith, William Cline and Cyrus Newkirk, "to select 
seven men to be ordained into the quorum of the twelve 
apostles." This committee chose Zenas H. Gurley, Henry 
H. Deam, Jason W. Briggs, Daniel B. Razy, John Cun- 
ningham, George White and Reuben Newkirk, who were 
accordingly ordained to the apostolic office, and so were 
"called of God as was Aaron." 

Briggs, as historian, felt that the validity of this 
choice might some day be called in question ; so, to fore- 
stall all criticism, said : 

But this stream rising higher than the fountain is only seem- 
ing, not real. By what authority, according to the law of God, 
is any one ordained? Answer: By the power of the Holy Ghost 
which is in the one who ordains him. Instead, then, of this 
being the stream, it is the fountain itself, from which flows the 



i;6 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

stream of authority of both priesthoods, from its highest to its 
lowest offices. 

It would be interesting to have a roll-call of these 
"apostles," thereby ascertaining whether God had any 
better luck with his second batch under the new dispen- 
sation than he had with the first. Zenas H. Gurley with- 
drew at Independence, Mo., and Gurley's sons and 
grandsons "read themselves out in 1886;" Jason W. 
Briggs resigned his apostolic office and withdrew from 
the church at the Independence (Mo.) Conference; 
Daniel B. Razy, George White and Reuben Newkirk 
were "fired" at the Piano (111.) Conference in 1865. 
Thus five out of the seven were unconvinced that the 
work was genuine. Josiah Ells and Charles Deny were 
appointed to take the place of Razy and Newkirk, of 
which pair Derry resigned the apostolic office, for no 
other reason than that he felt that "God had never called 
him to be an apostle." 

We have taken some pains to chronicle the events of 
those early days of the reorganization that we might 
establish beyond all peradventure that, instead of having 
"been called of God as was Aaron," these apostles had 
been selected by a committee. Any other seven men 
could have proceeded with this method of making an 
apostle, and it would have been just as authoritative in 
the one instance as in the other. Well has D. H. Bays 
said: 

Any man of intelligence will be compelled to regard all 
pretences to miraculous power as fraudulent, and denounce all 
latter-day pretenders to apostolic honors, as pseudo-apostles. 
Wrong in doctrine, wrong in organization, with man-made and 
false apostles, the Mormon Church can not be the church of 
Christ, all her boastful claims to the contrary notwithstanding. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 177 



CHAPTER XIII. 
The Mormon Priesthood — Continued. 

According to Mormon teaching, Jesus and John stood 
in the midst of an effete age, representing both the 
Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, offering them in 
a modified form to the Jews, which offer the Jews 
spurned. Hence the kingdom was taken from them and 
given to the Gentiles. Kelly tells us that "the priesthood 
was transferred. The Jewish house went down, and the 
kingdom of God was given to the Gentiles." * Church 
history gives the sequel to this that the Gentiles proved 
faithless, they lost their authority, which in time was 
given over to Joseph Smith, Jr., who was himself of the 
tribe of Ephraim, and was therefore a Jew. So God at 
last has brought the "authority" back to the Jews. Such 
an astounding utterance is enough to make the Hebrews 
all over the world "sit up and take notice." At any rate, 
the Mormons held it in the beginning, and have it yet, 
unless they have lost it. If God rejected the Mormon 
Church, then conditions are favorable for him to give 
the Gentiles another round ; and, if we may use the 
parlance of the checker-player, we should be inclined to 
protest against having the Mormons make the "next 
move." 

On pages 603-606 in Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet" 
will be found an apostolic letter from Gurley and New- 
kirk to one Isaac Sheen, who was prominent in the 
reorganization. The letter is delightful reading in the 
light of the question we are now studying. It is therein 

^'Presidency and Priesthood," p. 36. 



i;8 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

held that the apostasy at the time of the break-up at 
Nauvoo was a matter of prophecy, and the "revelation" 
in which that prophecy is found is in Doctrine and Cove- 
nants, Section ioo. While we think that this is a forced 
construction placed upon that revelation, yet for the sake 
of seeing what it logically involves we shall allow our- 
selves to assume the correctness of the assertion. The 
men are "apostles," and doubtless speak whereof they 
know, when in the fourth paragraph of that letter they 
say: "You are aware, brethren, that the rejection of the 
church produced an effect on the dead as well as on the 
living; so will its reorganization." Thus we see that 
these men deemed it true that the church which Joseph 
Smith, Jr., had established had been rejected. And if 
this is not true, then it removes the last vestige of claim 
for the reorganizers to establish the "work" anew. 

In this same connection reference should be made to 
a revelation which was received in January, 1841, where 
the Lord ( ?) commanded "all my saints" to build a 
house unto me; and during this time, your baptisms (in 
the Mississippi River) shall be acceptable unto me. But, 
behold, at the end of this time your baptisms for the 
dead shall not be acceptable unto me ; and if ye do not do 
these things, at the end of the appointment ye shall be 
rejected as a church with your dead, saith the Lord." 3 

Linn, in his "Story of the Mormons," seems to say 
that the temple was finished, 2 but this is denied by 
both the Brighamites and the Josephites. Brigham 
Young reproved the Saints for all work that was uncom- 
pleted, and asked them, "Have you ever seen a temple 
finished since the church was commenced? No, you have 
not." And the Josephites, in a pamphlet on "The Rejec- 



1 D. & C, Sec. 107: 10, 11. 
2 P. 353- 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 17O 

tion of the Church," say, "We now see that the temple 
was never built as commanded of God, and we are bound, 
therefore, to conclude that the church as organized, as 
also their baptisms for the dead, were rejected of God." 
Hence, being rejected, it was no longer with authority, 
if it ever had any. 

In the reorganization authority, it is assumed, sur- 
vived in part. Those who did not go into apostasy still 
held the authority with which they were originally en- 
dowed, consequently their acts were valid; and during 
the interim as they baptized, ordained and otherwise 
administered the gospel and its ordinances, it was by 
their original authority. If this means anything, it means 
that a church may be rejected as a church, while indi- 
viduals in the church, themselves being true, are clothed 
with all the sanction that is found in the same individuals 
when belonging to a church that is meriting the approval 
of God. 

The Mormons themselves being the judges, the apos- 
tasy that it is alleged existed before the reign of the 
prophet Joseph was only apparent, not real. As, follow- 
ing the death of Joseph, authority did not die with him, 
although the church was rejected, so may it be said that 
authority could have existed though the church organi- 
zations had all gone into apostasy. Ministrations of 
faithful men were valid then, whether that service con- 
sisted of baptizing, ordaining or otherwise administering 
the gospel. By this we mean to say that the reasoning 
is as correct when applied to those who presumed to do 
the will of God before the days of Joseph Smith as it is 
when applied to the Josephites in the reorganization 
after God had rejected the church. And what we have 
been solicitous to show in this discussion is that in every 
instance the "call" to service has been from man, and 



i8o MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

when the appointing power grew dissatisfied with the 
officers they could as easily not alone expel them from 
office, but with equal facility "turn them out of church." 
So far as the evidence can be applied to this discussion, 
it is manifest that the Mormons from the days of the 
prophet Joseph to the present time have never heard a 
voice other than the voice of man. 

Having considered at some length the "call" of the 
priesthood, we pass to a consideration of the orders as 
shown by their own teaching ; nor shall we need to guess 
at this, for the teaching is very full along this line. Kelly 
arranges the two priesthoods thus: 

THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION. 

( 1 ) The Melchizedek and Aaronic priesthoods, Moses 
being the chief apostle and high priest and prophet or 
president, supported by two aids — Aaron and Hur. 

(2) Twelve princes, chiefs of tribes. 

(3) The seventy elders. 

(4) Aaron, officiating in the "priest's" office, as the 
high priest of the Levitical order. 

(5) The lesser priests and Levites, etc. 

THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 

(1) Jesus as the apostle and high priest and prophet. 

(2) He was succeeded in the office in the church 
militant by James, the Lord's brother, who was aided 
by two assistants, who were in all probability Jude and 
Silas. 

(3) The quorum of the twelve apostles. 

(4) The seventy elders. 

(5) The elders. 

(6) Bishops. 

(7) Priests. 

(8) Teachers. 



STATISTICAL REPORT 

Of the Branch 

of the . District 

of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of L. D. S., for 
the months ending , 190 

Number at last report 

Present number 

Including of First Presidency 

Patriarchs 

Apostles 

High Counselors 

Bishops 

" High Priests - 

Seventy 

Elders 

Priests 

Teachers 

Deacons 

Since last report the following changes have been 
made : — 

Gain. 

By Baptism * 

Certificate of Baptism 

Letter from other Branches • • • • 

Vote on evidence of membership 

Total Gain 

Loss. 

By Letter of Removal 

' ' Expulsion 

''Death — 

Total Loss 

Of these absent from branch 

New Ordinations 

Marriages 

Approved by the branch igo 

President. 
Address : 

Clerk. 
Address 



FAC-SIMILE OF STATISTICAL REPORT SHOWING LIST OF OFFICERS IN 
REORGANIZED CHURCH. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 181 

(9) Deacons. 

(10) High priests, evangelists and pastors, set in 
their respective place, whose exact positions in point of 
preferment are not definitely set forth in the Bible. 1 

In order to more nearly complete the tabular arrange- 
ment of the "officers" of the church of Christ in contrast 
with the Mormon Church roster, we should like to ar- 
range them in the following order: 

THE NEW TESTAMENT THE MORMON CHURCH. 

church. (1) The First Presidency. 

(1) Apostles. (2) Patriarch. 

(2) Prophets. (3) The Twelve Apostles. 

(3) Seventy. (4) The Seventy. 

(4) Evangelists. (5) The High Priests. 

(5) Pastors. (6) Elders. 

(6) Elders. (7) Bishops. 

(7) Bishops. (8) Priests. 

(8) Teachers. (9) Teachers. 

(9) Deacons. (10) Deacons. 2 

By observing carefully these parallel columns, we 
discover that numbers (2), (4) and (5) in the left-hand 
column — that is, prophets, evangelists and pastors — are 
not found in the Mormon Church at all ; in the right- 
hand column, numbers (1), (2), (5) and (8) — that is, 
the first presidency, the patriarch, the high priest and 
priests — are not found in the New Testament church. 
Their so-called prophet had been dead for years ; they 
had but one, hence is not plural. Even allowing that 
they correctly use the New Testament phraseology, they 
have no men who serve as pastor, using that title as 



^'Presidency and Priesthood," pp. 82, 83. 

2 The right-hand column is shown to be correct by the photographic 
reproduction of statistical blank. 



182 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

descriptive of his office, and their evangelists are art 
unknown company of people. Further, in all the history 
of this people they never had an "office" that was known 
as "prophet." 

The reader who has not access to Kelly's work, "The 
Presidency and Priesthood," will be interested in know- 
ing what this bogus apostle has to say concerning the 
official roster of the New Testament church. He says : 

In the New Testament there is a history given of the forma- 
tion of the church of Christ in the time of the apostles. It sets 
forth the class of officers belonging thereto, and defines their 
duties. They were apostles, prophets, seventies, evangelists, 
elders, bishops, pastors, teachers and deacons. Their respective 
duties and authority are clearly set out and defined. So long as 
there was an organization established according to this pattern,, 
the church of Jesus Christ was upon the earth. When it was 
changed from this pattern, it ceased to be his church and became 
something else. 

To avoid imposition in finance, there is put in circulation a 
money test, by which the holder of the money is enabled to de- 
termine whether there is tendered to him in exchange true or 
false coin. When every mark and figure on a coin or bill har- 
monizes with the detector, it is pronounced good money. But 
if there is anything found on the bill or coin that is not found 
on the detector, or if there is something left out of the coin or 
bill that is found in the detector, it is rejected as spurious. 

The New Testament contains the history of the formation 
of the primitive church ; hence it is the test of detector by which 
all church organizations, claiming to be true, are to be tried. 
Every honest seeker after the church of God should expect to 
find an organization in harmony with its provisions, or he will 
fail to find the church of Christ. Should he become identified 
with another organization that is not according to this pattern, 
he will suffer himself to be imposed upon by that which is 
counterfeit, and, of course, in the end must meet with dis- 
appointment. 

Then, friend, seeker, take the New Testament in your hand 
as your guide and test by which to try systems, and start out 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 183 

and make a search throughout Christendom and see how many- 
churches may be found that will answer to the pattern, as being 
the church of Christ. Do not lose sight of the detector, or you 
will be in danger of being imposed upon by something man- 
made and spurious. The counterfeiter is abroad in the land. 1 

In all of Mormon literature there is nothing that is 
more characteristically Mormon than the above. The 
evasiveness that must purposely be practiced, as well as 
the cocksureness that is here expressed, are but parts of 
Mormon practice, and are everywhere in evidence where 
they speak at all. It will be noticed that when Kelly 
is talking about the "detector," he is as silent as the 
grave concerning "patriarchs," "first presidencies," "high 
priests" and "priests." Such silence is not an oversight ; 
it is studied. He is not unaware when using his "de- 
tector" that the Mormon Church signally fails at the 
points just indicated. His Mormon "coin," since it has 
at least four "marks" or "figures," which are not on the 
"detector," is by his own test shown to be spurious. 
Likewise, since it lacks three "marks," namely, "evan- 
gelists, pastors and prophets," "marks" which the "de- 
tector" has, its spuriousness is again declared. Doubtless 
speaking from personal participation in working some of. 
this coin out into circulation, he was prompted to say, 
"The counterfeiter is abroad in the land." 

If, therefore, the New Testament is the infallible rule 
that he makes it out to be, and if any church having any- 
thing more or less than the officers it names is not the 
church of Christ, then by seven counts is the Mormon 
organization proved defective, and "should any one be- 
come identified with" this "organization that is not ac- 
cording to the pattern, he will suffer himself to be 
imposed upon by that which is counterfeit, and of course,. 



^'Presidency and Priesthood," pp. 49, 50. 



184 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

in the end, must meet with disappointment." By his own 
Avords and his own test is his church shown to be "man- 
made and spurious." 

However, any one who has the power of vision suf- 
ficient to see through a ladder without knocking out the 
rounds, can see the purport of the Mormon philosophy 
as it endeavors to establish itself as a true church of 
Christ. The important word in its plea is "apostles." 
No other church lays claim at the present time of having 
such "officials," and as with the Mormons this is clearly 
a mark of identity, and they possess such officers, there- 
fore, so they reason, theirs is the true church of Christ. 
The gist of the matter is contained in a picture which 
this author draws on page 98 of "The Presidency and 
Priesthood," wherein in contrast with the purity of the 
church at Jerusalem he places "the dark night of super- 
stition and error," and bids us "see if" we "can discover 
an institution of modern times that conforms perfectly 
to her pattern, as given in the New Testament, in organ- 
ization, doctrine and spirit. They all make claim to be- 
ing a continuation or renewal of the church symbolized 
by the woman of Revelation 12 ; but claim is one thing 
and fact another. Do their organizations harmonize 
with hers? Have they apostles and prophets as she had? 
Have they communion with heaven, the Holy Ghost in 
power, in visions, dreams, tongues, healings and admin- 
istering of angels as she had? Do they claim as much? 
After examining the whole of the Roman Catholic and 
even Protestant Christendom, you can but answer in the 
negative, "No, they are not in harmony with her pattern 
in organization and doctrine." 

Then, after answering, as he thinks, the statement 
that no such organization is needed, he concludes as 
follows : 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 185 

But notwithstanding this popular dogmatism, we are specific- 
ally informed that apostles, prophets, teachers, etc., were to con- 
tinue "till we all corrie into the unity of the faith, and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). 

This fairly represents the Mormon contention in re- 
gard to the organization of the church, and, accepting it 
as such, we should be pleased, since he affirms as much, 
to have him show us where is found the word "con- 
tinue" in that verse of Scripture, or in any other, where 
reference is made to the organization of the church.. 
This is pure assumption and agrees perfectly with the 
many others which this writer makes. 

In our undertaking to exhaustively deal with the 
"organization" of the church, we observe that the pres- 
ence of "apostles and prophets" does not guarantee the 
genuineness of the organization with which they are 
identified. The Josephites and Brighamites each have 
these offices and officers, as had also some of the other 
defunct sects in Mormondom, and yet the one never 
allowed the validity of the other's organization. Kelly, 
as we have seen, says that the apostles and prophets were 
to continue till we have arrived at a unity of faith. In 
that same connection he says : 

It is evident that this Scripture provides for the existence, 
and the necessity of the continuation, of an inspired ministry 
to a later period in the world's history than this ; for the Chris- 
tians even have not yet come to the "unity of faith," or "knowl- 
edge of the Son of God," to say nothing of other worshipers. 
The world is tossed to and fro, divided and carried about by 
every religious wind that blows, and stability and certainty are 
found nowhere. To-day a Methodist, to-morrow a Baptist, next 
day an Episcopalian, Congregationalist, Quaker, Unitarian, or 
some other unsatisfying faith ; and then a spiritualist, infidel,, 
pantheist or deist, a science healer, etc. 1 



■■"Presidency and Priesthood," p. 99. 



386 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

As much as we may deplore the condition that Mr. 
Kelly here describes, and the substantial truth of his 
utterance we are prepared to admit, yet we do not think 
that the Mormon cure-all of the presence of apostles and 
prophets in the church is efficacious. As a remarkable 
example of divisiveness, this writer excoriates the Bap- 
tists, and then says of them: 

They believe that Baptist succession exists, and that the Bap- 
tist church is that church. But which Baptist church is the one 
standing in the true line of succession? This is not agreed 
among the Baptists themselves, and there are many Baptist 
churches ; yet it is important to men interested in knowing the 
true way. This same writer, who seems to be wonderfully in 
love with the Baptists and down on every one else (D. B. Ray, 
in "Baptist Succession"), admits that there are Baptists who be- 
lieve in succession, but deny that succession can be proved. . . . 
Again, the writer has the courage to state that no man can be 
in the kingdom of Jesus Christ who is not in that kingdom 
which has succession from the apostolic age. 1 

The Baptists will doubtless be able to take care of 
their own difficulties, but with their permission we should 
like to take Kelly's battery and turn it on the Mormon 
fort. It is notorious that the Mormons have been at the 
fighting point for decades ; nor is there any promise of 
abatement in the war. It is therefore germane to the 
question to substitute the word "Mormon" for the word 
"Baptist," which will make the sentence read as follows : 

They (the Mormons) believe that Mormon succession exists, 
and that the Mormon Church is that church. But which Mor- 
mon Church is the one standing in the true line of succession? 
This is not agreed among the Mormons themselves, and there 
are many Mormon churches; yet it is important to men inter- 
ested in knowing the true way. 

It mishit be added that this same writer, who is won- 



1 "Presidencv and Priesthood," pp. 132, 133. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONTINUED 187 

-der fully in love with the Mormons and is down on every 
one else, has the courage to assert that no man can be in 
the kingdom of Jesus Christ who is not in that kingdom 
which has descended in direct succession from Joseph 
Smith. According to Kelly, there can be no other suc- 
cession but this, for the church that Christ built, and of 
which he affirmed that the gates of hell should not pre- 
vail against it, was "rejected" in that season of apostasy 
centuries before the coming of the angel Moroni to the 
prophet Joseph. The only successionxtherefore, that is 
admissible is that which has descended from Joseph 
Smith, Jr. Our point is, that if the divisions among the 
Baptists is a sign of their lack of authority, then is the 
Mormon Church in the same predicament. The fact that 
the Mormons will claim that they have apostles will con- 
vince no one but themselves, for, to use Kelly's own 
words, "claim is one thing and fact another." 

Further, Mr. Kelly, your church, according to Whit- 
mer, did not have any apostles at the very beginning. It 
was "regularly organized" on the sixth day of April, 
1830, with the elder as the highest office in the church. 
This "apostle" business came later. With the church of 
Christ the apostles were first. In the first church they 
were indispensable ; in the Mormon Church they are 
purely artificial excrescences on the body of the church. 
There never has been a time that they have been any- 
thing else than a fungus growth. They are not indis- 
pensable even to the Mormon Church. The elder can 
baptize, and he can lay on hands for the gift of the Holy 
Ghost, and perform every act that is deemed essential by 
Mormons to induct a "Gentile" into the fold. And, as 
we shall see before we are through with the priesthood 
question, there is not even a "mark" of identity between 
the Mormon Church and the primitive church. 



188 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The Mormon Priesthood — Concluded. 

Elder W. H. Kelly, to whom we are indebted for so 
much information on the priesthood question, claims to 
be an "apostle," and by his church is esteemed as such 
an official. But to enter that office, whom has he suc- 
ceeded? He will probably confess that some of the 
apostles have died, and obligingly left their "office" for 
some one else to fill. Indeed, this is Kelly's attitude on 
this topic. He says : 

The offices of the priesthood can exist with or without an 
occupant. The removing of an officer does not destroy the office 
any more than the death of the President of the United States 
destroys the office which he holds. When the President dies, or 
is removed from office, or his term of office expires, by due 
process of law another may be appointed to fill the same office. 
This is true of the kingdom of God, or the church of Jesus 
Christ. God designated certain men for the several offices of 
the priesthood. They were duly authorized to occupy them. 
When any of them was removed by death or otherwise, another 
was appointed to succeed him in the same office. 1 

Since, then, this "apostle" has been elevated to that 
station, it would be interesting to have him point out the 
"due process of law" by which he was chosen for this 
position. We are not arguing that the office does not 
remain after the death of a former occupant, but, in the 
event of any one of us who are not Mormons should 
ever be called to be an "apostle," we should like to know 
the "due process of law" by which it should be done, 
thereby assuring ourselves against possible doubt arising 



^'Presidency and Priesthood," p. 45. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONCLUDED i8g 

as to the legitimacy of our claim. We are really appre- 
hensive that Mr. Kelly did not make full inquiry into the 
credentials of those who lifted him to his exalted place. 
Had he at all been conversant with the history of the 
people with whom he is identified, he would have known 
that the first apostles in Mormondom were chosen by 
Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris, 
and that the apostles in the reorganization were chosen 
by "a committee," and his suspicions would justly have 
been aroused as to possible deception being practiced 
upon him. It might have aided him somewhat had he 
used his "detector" on himself, thus assuring himself 
that he had all the "marks" and "figures" of an apostle 
of Jesus Christ. He has told us that it clearly sets out 
and defines the duties and authority of an apostle in the 
New Testament church, and, such being the case, we 
should like to have his report on the "due process of 
law," "the duties of an apostle" and "the authority of an 
apostle." Was he elected to the office? If so, who com- 
posed the electorate? Who was entitled to vote? Was 
he appointed? If so, by what authority was the appoint- 
ment made and who gave him his commission? We are 
willing to take the New Testament as our "guide," "de- 
tector," "test," to ascertain whether he has stamped upon 
him the "seal of his apostleship." 

We shall now consider a positive line of thought that 
will enable us to compute at its actual value this arro- 
gant pretender's claim to being an apostle of Jesus 
Christ, and to do this we need only say: 

First: That the apostles of Jesus Christ were never 
called "officers" from one end of the New Testament to 
the other. That they served Christ independent of any 
church government is patent to him who will take the 
pains to inform himself on the question. 



190 ITORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Second: That Christ is the head of the church, claim- 
ing all authority in heaven and in earth. 

Third: That by reason of this authority he gave unto 
certain men a definite work to do. 

Fourth : That this work had within its intention the 
evangelization of the world. His promise was that he 
would be with them even unto the end of the age. 

Fifth : That the limitations imposed by human mor- 
tality would in a few years cause the cessation of the 
individual labors of the men chosen for that work. So 
far as the united testimony of history and tradition sup- 
plies the facts, we have no reason to believe that any 
apostle survived the century in which Christianity was 
born. 

. Sixth : That in an earlier period of Christ's ministry 
he said to these same men, whom he later chose for this 
definite work, that he had ordained them and chosen 
them that they might bring forth fruit, and that their 
fruit should remain; which was not true, if their work 
was swallowed up in a complete and universal apostasy. 
According to the Mormon position, the fortunes of the 
church had suffered disaster, so much so that she was 
lost for centuries before the coming of the prophet 
Joseph Smith. But Christ's promise was to these men, 
not that they should remain, but that their fruit should 
remain. 

Seventh: That the gospel was of such character and 
based upon such facts that it required witnesses to tes- 
tify to its underlying facts, and for this specific purpose 
were these men chosen. Their frequent assertion was, 
"whereof we are witnesses." * Apart from their testi- 
mony, there is not a man on earth who can say that 

1 See Matt. 28:18-20; John 15:16; Acts 1:8; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10: 
39; 1 John 1 : 1-4. 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONCLUDED 191 

Jesus left behind "nun an open tomb and ascended to 
glory. Hence their testimony, direct and irrefutable, was 
indispensable to the establishment and perpetuation of 
Christianity. 

Eighth : Witnessing being their peculiar work, its 
character was such that it would admit of no substitute, 
and consequently could have no succession. There is no 
amount of holy palaver or the "laying on of hands" that 
is able to make an apostle of a man who has not wit- 
nessed the facts upon which the gospel is based. No 
testimony is valid to the establishment of an objective 
fact that is borne by one who has not seen the very fact 
in question. This is so manifest as to require no further 
elaboration. Paul is no exception. 

Ninth: That if we can be assured that the facts in 
question have been credibly confirmed by the witnesses 
originally chosen for that purpose, then we will have 
gained everything that direct communication with the 
original witnesses might have supplied us. A will once 
placed on probate, although witnesses who confirmed it 
are long since dead, will stand as long as the court hav- 
ing jurisdiction in the case is in existence. The New 
Testament is such a will, in force after the death of the 
testator and not before, and confirmed by men who were 
competent to testify, and will stand as long as the court 
having jurisdiction remains in existence. Hence we 
read: "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great sal- 
vation ; which at first began to be spoken by the Lord, 
and zcas confirmed unto us by them who heard him; God 
also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders, and 
divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according 
to his will?" 1 That Scripture contains every essen- 

iHeb. 2:1-4. 



IQ2 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

tial feature of our plea. It was the Lord who took the 
initiative; it was the Lord who delegated these men to 
speak intelligently and advisedly upon the facts in ques- 
tion, and God rendered the further confirmation by signs 
and wonders, gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his 
will. This was the "seal of their apostleship," and all 
was for the confirmation of the gospel. 

Tenth : That we are warranted in our conclusion that 
everything was simply confirmatory, ceased by the limi- 
tation imposed in the accomplishment of the purpose at 
hand ; and since this, on the one hand, consisted of living 
men, apostles, who in labor were limited to their lifetime, 
and on the other of "signs and wonders, and divers mir- 
acles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost," these being no 
longer necessary, ceased. And this being the purpose of 
their having been given, added reason must be assigned 
for their continuance beyond the accomplishment of that 
design. 

Eleventh : That apostolic succession of men from the 
viewpoint of the gospel is absolutely impossible. To 
make an apostle would require a process not essentially 
different in this year of grace from that required in the 
days of the church's establishment. And there is noth- 
ing short of the same demonstration which those men 
made that will show any man to-day entitled to that high 
station. Since, then, apostolic succession of men is im- 
possible, we are driven to the conclusion that the only 
succession that will meet the exigencies of the case is 
the apostolic succession of truth. It is the only conceiv- 
able way in which Christ can keep his promise to be with 
these men to the end of the age, and that in calling them 
to their work he had decreed that their fruit should 
remain. And any pretension of any man to this office, 
and any claim that it has duties which he is capable of 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONCLUDED 193 

performing, or that it is an office that Christ intended 
should remain in the church, is as wicked as it is pre- 
sumptuous, and possible only to one who has become a 
party to a fraud as great as Mormonism is shown to be. 
And we can but conclude that Kelly has some marks that 
the "detector" does not have, as also are there some 
"marks" on the "detector" which Kelly does not have, 
and a very strong suspicion arises that his apostleship is 
"man-made and spurious." 

We are now prepared to come back to the "detector" 
and the allusions that have been made in its behalf, and 
are prepared to say that when Kelly affirmed that the 
New Testament is the Mormon's guide, test, detector, 
he must have known that he was misrepresenting the 
Mormon position on that question. It would not in the 
least be flattering to his intelligence to deny a criminal 
knowledge of having practiced duplicity. He knew that 
to establish his claim for apostolicity of his organization 
that he had to purposely evade giving the true Mormon 
ideas touching the New Testament. Their exact plead- 
ing is this : They deny the assumption, as they style it, 
that all questions relative to matters in religion must be 
settled by direct proofs from the Bible. Says one of 
them : 

Direct evidence from that source is very excellent, but there 
are many superior proofs that can only be inferred; and there 
are thousands of valid proofs in matters of religion outside of 
the Bible. To claim that all the facts and proofs peculiar to 
the Christian religion are embraced within the Old and New 
Testaments, is preposterous. If we had all the teachings of 
Jesus, and all the writings of the prophets, yet that, as great 
as it would be, would not compass all that relates to matters of 
religion in Christ Jesus. The apostles had the law and the 
prophets. And without doubt they had many more sacred writ- 



a Blair's "Joseph the Seer," pp. 55, 56. 



194 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

ings than what we now have in the Old Testament, for both the 
Saviour and the apostles quote Scripture not found in the Com- 
mon Version. . . . They had also the teachings of Jesus, the 
thousandth part of which we probably have not (John 21:25) ; 
and then they had constant revelations from the Comforter 
(John 14:26; 16:13-15). Now, if we had all this, we would 
not be justified in claiming that we had all the truths of God. 
. . . The idea that nothing relative to doctrine, ceremony or 
practice in church affairs can be true except there can be found 
for it a direct verbal proof, or an unquestionable precedent, is 
highly absurd. 

Summarizing the above excerpt, we have : Direct evi- 
dence from the Bible is "very excellent," but insufficient, 
nevertheless. The claim that all the facts and proofs 
peculiar to the Christ in religion are in the Bible is 
"preposterous." To claim any doctrine, ceremony or 
practice invalid because it lacks direct verbal proof or 
unquestionable precedent, "is highly absurd." Thus it 
is that Kelly's "detector" is shown to lack in some of the 
"marks" and "figures," especially when his brother Mor- 
mon goes out to look for the "true church of Christ." 

By way of rejoinder, it may be claimed by some 
apologist that Kelly and Blair are not in disagreement, 
because the one was emphasizing organisation and the 
other was referring more particularly to doctrine. That _ 
is, Kelly was talking about the priesthood, while Blair 
was not. To shut off this possible reply, we shall see 
what Blair has to say about the priesthood, thus remov- 
ing a possible subterfuge which they would gladly use 
to parry this blow against them. On page 55 of his 
work, "Joseph the Seer," Blair, after affirming that the 
priests of the Mosaic economy were authorized of God, 
says: 

Inasmuch, then, as the religion of Christ, and the church of 
Christ, are of greater importance, for time and for eternity, than 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONCLUDED 195 

that of the Jews under Moses' law, why is it not at least equally, 
nay, more important, to have an authorized priesthood, and well- 
defined rules in regard to delegating and transmitting authority 
in the church of Christ? 

But some will say, Where are those rules? We do not dis- 
cover them in the New Testament. Very true, we do not dis- 
cover them there in their completeness, and there is good reason 
for it. The New Testament contains but a portion of the writ- 
ings given to the primitive church. Bingham, in his "Antiquities 
of the Christian Church," says : "An exact and authentic cata- 
logue of these first foundations would be a very useful and en- 
tertaining thing; but at this distance of time it is impossible to 
gratify the world with any such curiosity, whatever pains should 
be taken about it. Yet there are some scattered remains and 
fragments to be collected out of the ancient writers" (p. 57). 
In view of the foregoing facts, we may not look to find in the 
writings of the primitive church anything beyond fragmentary 
evidences in regard to the subject of priesthood, and to these 
we appeal. 1 

Both of the books, Kelly's "Presidency and Priest- 
hood" and Blair's "Joseph the Seer," have been pub- 
lished by the direction of the church. They are thus 
more than private views publicly expressed ; they are the 
pronouncements of the church upon the subjects treated 
in them. Kelly says: "Their (apostles, prophets, evan- 
gelists, etc.) duties and authority are clearly set out and 
defined." Blair says : "We may not look to find in the 
writings of the church anything beyond fragmentary 
evidence in regard to the subject of the priesthood;" for 
which reason the "rules" are not discoverable in the New 
Testament. Evidently Blair has not been convinced by 
the evidence that is so clear to Kelly. 

The inconsistency of these two utterances dissolves 
into most perfect concord in the common practice of the 
Saints. When Mormon emissaries go forth to preach 



1 Blair's "Joseph the Seer" ut supra. 



ig6 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

"the everlasting gospel," adopting Kelly's tactics, they 
slash right and left until they have cut down all churches 
which have no apostles. When they have succeeded in 
convincing a convert to give up all hope of finding salva- 
tion with any other people, they turn to the doctrine of 
the fragmentariness of the New Testament, and proceed 
to build up the priesthood by "revelation." Hence it is 
with poor grace that Kelly invites to an investigation of 
his hierarchy along the line of New Testament teaching. 
Such damnable hypocrisy should not go unexposed. Let 
not the reader think that this too ^severely condemns 
these men. They could but know that in using the 
"detector" argument that they were guilty of duplicity. 
They know that there is no other church organization 
that lays claim to having apostles and prophets, using 
these words with Mormon significance, and they know 
that the only use that they make of the New Testament 
is to present what they call proof, that theirs is the only 
church that conforms in that respect to the New Testa- 
ment church. And they further know that the only use 
to which they can consistently put the New Testament 
is to capture the unwary, incautious and unsophisticated 
listener, and in the end, having eliminated the book 
which they have used as their "detector," they bring 
their converts at last to an acceptance of the doctrine of 
the completeness of continuous revelation. If such men 
and such priesthood are of the Melchizedek type, may 
the good Lord preserve us from both them and it! 

But we are not yet through with the question of the 
insufficiency of Kelly's "detector," and we say again that 
it is not in the least flattering to his intelligence to 
assume that he was not aware that his "detector" argu- 
ment went counter to the accepted Mormon position. 
While Blair is credited by his brethren with great ability 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONCLUDED 197 

as a writer, he was not the first to attempt to demon- 
strate the "fragmentariness" not alone of the New Tes- 
tament, but of the Old as well. Right early in the history 
of the movement there was published from the pen of 
one Charles Thompson a duodecimo volume entitled 
''Evidences in Proof of the Book of Mormon," on page 
149 of which I find a list of missing books. Replying 
to the allegation that the Bible contains all that God ever 
revealed to man, and therefore there is no need of the 
appearance of the Book of Mormon, he says : 

In answer to this, I would remark that, in looking over the 
Old Testament prophecies, 1 find something like fourteen books 
actually quoted by the prophets, which are not found in the 
English Bible. They are as follows : The Book of Jasher, the 
Book of the Wars of the Lord, the Book of the Acts of Solo- 
mon, the Book of Samuel the Seer, the Book of Nathan the 
Prophet, the Book of Gad, the Book of Jehu, the Prophecy of 
Ahijah, the Visions of Iddo, the Book of Shemaiah, the Book 
of Iddo the Seer, the Story of the Prophet Iddo, the Commen- 
tary of the Book of Kings, the Sayings of the Seers ; and in 
the New Testament . . . such as Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 
5:9); Jude's Epistle on the Common Salvation (Jude 3); the 
quotation of an unrecorded prophecy (Rom. 11 : 26, 27), and the 
prophecy from Enoch (Jude 14). . . . From the foregoing we 
learn that the Bible does not contain all the revelations God ever 
gave to man; for we learn that about eighteen books are actually 
wanting, all of which are quoted in our present English Bible. 
This being the case, there may be five times as many more which 
are not quoted; hence the argument is refuted. 

Now, Mr. Kelly, we have two against one declaring 
that your "detector" is imperfect, insufficient, and inas- 
much as "there may be five times as many more that are 
not quoted," this may become the measure of the insuf- 
ficiency of your "detector." Nor does your "Bible of 
the Western Continent" help us out any, for not one of 
the "lost books" is identified in it. Besides, it is lacking 



i 9 8 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

in 116 pages, doubtless of great value, and what is left 
is not written out in full, for it is only "an abridgment 
of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the 
Lamanites." Even the Jaredites' history is "an abridg- 
ment also." 

The "Book of Enoch," for instance, must have been 
a very ancient book, and, such being the case, since 
Nephi went back to Jerusalem and killed Laban in effect- 
ing possession of the "plates," which plates contained 
"also the prophecies of the holy prophets from the begin- 
ning," it is sad to think what bad luck the Almighty had 
with that book. It should not be incredible to the Mor- 
mon of average gullibility to believe that Enoch never 
wrote it at all, but that Jude got his information as to 
what Enoch said, by "revelation." And the same reason- 
ing should satisfy a like character of the source from 
whence Paul drew his "unrecorded" quotation. And, 
generally speaking, what is the use of any book, for 
since God communicates directly with the Saints, it 
would save much clerical work to be freed from the 
writing of the book as well as from the added expense 
of publishing it. Certainly God added nothing that 
was worth the time and effort when he gave the "Bible 
of the Western Continent," and it is unquestionably true 
that the Mormons have given the world nothing new 
except their priesthood. As we have seen, using the 
New Testament as the "detector," it egregiously fails at 
not less than seven points ; and when we take the Book 
of Mormon as the "detector," it shows that "the inhabit- 
ants of ancient America" never dreamed of the arrange- 
ment that was made between Joseph Smith, Jr., and 
Sidney Rigdon, and which they sought to palm off on 
the world as a divinely inspired ministry. It was Joseph 
Smith, and not the New Testament, nor yet the Book of 



THE MORMON PRIESTHOOD— CONCLUDED 199 

Mormon, who said that there "are in the church two 
priesthoods; namely, the Melchizedek and Aaronic, in- 
cluding the Levitical." Hence at the very foundation of 
all these vast pretensions the Mormons come to the doc- 
trine of continuous revelation. It is upon this, and not 
upon any Bible, whether of the eastern or of the west- 
ern continent, that the Mormon priesthood rests, and 
certainly it is no more stable than the foundation that 
underlies it. 

We may now safely quote Kelly's exhortation, and 
with it we shall close this chapter: 

Then, friend, seeker, take the New Testament in your hand 
as your guide and test, by which to try systems, and start out 
and make search throughout Christendom, and see how many 
churches may be found that will answer to the pattern, as being 
the church of Jesus Christ. Do not lose sight of the detector, 
or you will be imposed upon by something man-made and spuri- 
ous. The counterfeiter is abroad in the land. 

We began this study of the priesthood with the ex- 
pressed intention of showing that their assumptions are 
baseless and their authority a fiction. How well the task 
has been done, or how conclusive is our judgment in the 
matter, we leave to the candid conviction of the reader. 
We flatter ourselves in the belief that the last vestige of 
authority is removed, and that in its assumptions for its 
priesthood Mormondom rests upon a foundation no more 
stable than the will of man. We shall now pass to con- 
sider the doctrine of continuous revelation. 



200 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER XV. 
The Book of Doctrine and Covenants. 

It is very generally understood that the Book of Doc- 
trine and Covenants is authoritative with the Saints and 
occupies a large place in deciding for them controverted 
points of doctrine. Such has been the light in which it 
has been held since Aug. 17, 1835, when at Kirtland, 
Ohio, it was voted by the church to accept it as a law 
of the organization. We contemplate at this point in our 
study an investigation of the book, believing that by this 
means we shall be enabled to judge of the value of the 
doctrine of continuous revelation. It shall also supply us 
with data for judging of the value of the prophetic 
claims of Joseph Smith, Jr. We shall be able to see that 
this doctrine of continuous revelation - was ever the "big 
stick" of the "prophet," by means of which he could 
cudgel into line his followers, and shall see before we are 
through with our study that it was the publication of 
these so-called "revelations" that directly caused the up- 
rising of the Missourians against the Saints. 

In an age when everybody else had concluded that 
revelations had ceased, this obscure boy, still in his teens, 
when circumstances in life would only tend to his obscu- 
rity and to make him of no consequence in the world, 
began to have "visions." This was as early as in the 
spring of 1820. It was in that first vision that he saw 
"two personages, whose brightness and glory defied all 
description," standing above him in the air, and one 
angel spoke to him, calling him by name, and, pointing 
to the other, said: "This is my beloved son: hear him." 



BOOK OF DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS 2or 

This description would answer to God and Christ. A 
part of their message to him was that all "sects were 
wrong," and that he should hold aloof from them. His 
historian says : "The great work of the opening of the 
dispensation thus accomplished by the august adminis- 
tration of the Father and the Son, the heavens rested for 
a season." * 

While we are waiting for the heavens to resume their 
operations with this embryo prophet, which does not 
occur till 1823, we make note of the fact, as he himself 
acknowledges, that he "fell into many foolish errors, and 
displayed the weakness of youth and the corruptions of 
human nature, and was led into divers temptations to' 
gratify appetites offensive in the sight of God." But on 
the night of Sept. 21, 1823, the angel Moroni appeared. 
He informed Joseph that there were some plates in his 
keeping which gave "an account of the former inhabit- 
ants of this continent and the source from whence tliey 
sprang. He also said that the fullness of the everlast- 
ing gospel was contained in them, as delivered by the 
Saviour to the ancient inhabitants." Likewise the mes- 
senger informed him of "great judgments which were 
coming on the earth, with great desolations of famine, 
sword, pestilence, and that these grievous judgments 
would come on the earth in this generation." Then the 
angel left the "prophet" to his musings. 

While the "prophet" was in the midst of these reflec- 
tions, Moroni once more came to him and cautioned him, 
not unwisely, to make no use of the plates for mercenary 
purposes, and with this, as Joseph says, "the heavenly 
messenger ascended from me for the third time, the cock: 
crew, and I found that day was approaching." Thus,, 

iTullidge's "Life of the Prophet," p. 6. 



202 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

""all night had the angel been with Joseph. Till the dawn 
of morn had he tarried. Thrice had he descended and 
thrice ascended, with all the circumstances of reality in 
his appearing." x As we read this we feel ourselves fall- 
ing in with the rhythmical swing of the historian's de- 
scription of this incident, especially when, in singing the 
praises of his "prophet," he says : "Then crew the cock 
as the angel ascended for the third time, and the morn- 
ing dawned. Truly a poetic fitness this to the dawn of 
the great spiritual day of the Messiah's coming." ' 

As blessings always brighten as they take their flight, 
and depression fast follows on the heels of ecstacy, so 
Joseph early found himself dealing with the hard cir- 
cumstances of life. On the day following this night 
interview with heaven's messengers, he went into the 
fields to work with his father, Joseph Smith, Sr., but 
found himself incapacitated for work. This was possibly 
due to his loss of sleep, together with the excessive draft 
that had been made on his nervous energy. At any rate, 
he felt indisposed, and communicated the fact to his 
father. Upon this he determined to go home, and in 
trying to get over the fence he fell helplessly to the 
ground, and became unconscious. He does not say that 
lie fell over the fence, just that he fell helplessly to the 
•ground. With returning consciousness he heard a voice 
calling him by name, and in looking up saw the same 
messenger that had been with him on the night previous. 
The angel commanded Joseph to make known to the 
senior Smith the events that had so recently transpired. 
This Joseph did, and the old man was satisfied that his 
boy had received a message from God and advised the 
son to carry out the angel's instructions. 



1 Tullidge, p. 12. 
*Ibid, p. 15. 



BOOK OF DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS 203 

The "prophet" experienced no difficulty in identify- 
ing the spot which had been pointed out to him in the 
"vision," and set himself to the task of bringing those 
hidden plates to view. When the earth had been suf- 
ficiently removed to disclose the box in which the treas- 
ures had been preserved for centuries, Joseph, Archi- 
mides-like, began to look for a lever. When he applied 
it he says a "shock was produced upon his system by an 
invisible power." He desisted from his efforts, but only 
for the moment, when, after his brief hesitation, he tried 
it again, with like results. The third time he made an 
ineffectual attempt with precisely the same results, except 
that the last "shock" was the severest of all. Such a 
scene does not readily yield to poetic description. How- 
ever, we might say that thrice did the prophet pry and 
thrice did he receive a shock with all "the circumstances 
of reality" in the performance. Such is the difference 
between the poetic "opening of a new dispensation" and 
the prosaic awkwardness in opening a stone box. But 
what did he want with the "box," anyway? The lid was 
removed, else he could not have seen the "plates and the 
Urim and Thummim," and it would have been more 
sensible to have stooped and picked them up rather than 
have tried to pry out the box. He was disappointed in 
his quest. 

At the end of each year from this date Joseph would 
find his way back to Hill Cumorah, and at each visit 
would find the "angel" there ready to communicate to 
the "prophet" additional information regarding the "lat- 
ter-day work." Then came the end of his four years' 
probation, and on the night of Sept. 22, 1827, he got the 
"plates" and the "Urim and Thummim." The knowl- 
edge that he had them in his possession soon leaked out, 
and, as he represents it, every stratagem was used by the 



204 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

people of his community (enemies, of course) to get 
them from him, and, failing in this, began to per- 
secute him ; which persecution at last impelled his flight 
from Manchester, in the State of New York, to Susque- 
hanna County, Pa., whence he was removed by the timely 
assistance of Martin Harris, in the donated sum of fifty 
dollars. 

Between December, 1827, and February, 1828, he 
copied some of the characters on the plates, and by the 
aid of the "Urim and Thummim" translated some of 
them. By February of that year Martin Harris came to 
him, and received some of the "caractors," which were 
said to have been taken to Professor Anthon, of New 
York, for examination. On his return from New York,. 
Harris stopped at his home for a few days and arranged 
his affairs for a prolonged absence, and reached Smith 
again about Apr. 12, 1828, and immediately began to 
serve as amanuensis for the ''prophet." It was not long,, 
however, until Harris began to importune his chief for 
some assurance as to the genuineness of the work, and 
indicated to him the desirability of assuring Mrs. Harris. 
After considerable progress had been made in transla- 
tion, he prevailed upon Joseph to allow him to take 
home with him a portion of the manuscript then ready,, 
which, if we may believe the preface of the Book of 
Mormon, consisted of 116 pages. For some reason^ 
never satisfactorily explained to or by the prophet, these 
pages never got back to him, and this incident had the 
immediate effect of stopping the work of translating for 
about one year. Harris went home, probably took up his 
farm duties, and Joseph very laudably, so his historian 
says, "turned his attention to the sustenance of his fam- 
ily, receiving, however, from time to time, revelations 
from the Lord concerning the book, and also giving ex- 



BOOK OF DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS 205 

plicit counsel and guidance."* Others, such as Joseph's 
father-in-law, wanted to see the plates, but as the "stork" 
was arranging to visit the Smith home, opportunity was 
afforded Joseph to say that his first-born child should be 
the first to gaze upon them. That the child was still- 
born did not discourage the "prophet" in his attempt to 
speak the will of the Lord, and it is proper to say that 
by this time he was fairly started on his prophetic 
career. 

Tullidge implies, as noted above, that" Joseph had 
been receiving a number of "revelations," but the earliest 
one published bears the date of July, 1828, which must 
have been near the time when the manuscript was lost. 
Naturally enough, this "revelation" deals with the sub- 
ject of the lost manuscript, and aims to give Joseph 
instruction as to further duties. The Lord gave Smith 
to understand that his work and designs can not be frus- 
trated, and very reasonably assumes that he is able to 
meet this emergency. The "ounce of prevention" might 
have prompted the Lord to turn the "Urim and Thum- 
mim" on Harris, or, perhaps, better yet, on Mrs. Har- 
ris ; but, having failed in taking this precautionary 
measure, he would be satisfied with "afflicting" Joseph 
for a season, and later would again call him to the 
"work." 

The experience was not without its salutary effect, in 
that it led the agents in the work to translate in duplicate, 
which fact accounts for there being two manuscripts of 
the original "copy" of the Book of Mormon — the one, 
which was placed in the corner-stone of the temple at 
Nauvoo, and which through moisture was rendered illeg- 
ible, and the other, which fell into the hands of David 



iTullidge, p. 33. 



S©6 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Whitmer, and was more recently sold to the "Josephites" 
of Lamoni, Iowa. 1 

For a time, Harris drops out of the plot. In the 
meanwhile, the old man Smith is getting shaky in his 
faith, and the Lord directs a "revelation" to him. Prog- 
ress in bringing forth the Book of Mormon was slow 
now, so the Lord buoys up the waning faith by announc- 
ing to him that there was to come forth "this marvelous 
work and a wonder," and enjoins him to "remember 
patience, temperance, humility, diligence, etc. ;" which 
et cetera in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants is 
amplified to read: "Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, 
temperance, patience, virtue, brotherly kindness, godli- 
ness, humility, diligence." 2 

Harris up to this time had not seen the "plates," 
and although the Lord had so recently called him a 
"wicked man," nothing daunted, he once more came 
to Joseph asking for a view of the "plates." Joseph, 
prophet that he was, could do nothing more nor less than 
to inquire of the Lord about the matter, receiving this 
reply : 

I, the Lord, am God, and I have given these things (the 
plates) unto my servant Joseph, and I have commanded him 
that he should stand as a witness of these things (the plates) ; 
nevertheless I have caused him that he should enter into a 
covenant with me that he should not show them except I com- 
mand him, and he has no power over them (the plates) except 
I grant it unto him. And he has a gift to translate the book, 
and I have commanded him that he shall pretend to no other 
gift, for I will grant him no other gift. 3 



Hn the financial statement of the Reorganized Church for the year 
1907, the Book of Mormon manuscript is itemized as an "available asset," 
$2,450 (Saints' Herald, Jan. 22, 1908). 

2 Cf. "Book of Commandments" and D. & C, Sec. iii. 

3 "Book of Com.," Sec. iv. 



BOOK OF DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS 207 

To the correct understanding of the criticism that is 
to follow, a word of historical explanation is due the 
reader whose attention has not been called to the fact 
that the "revelations" were first printed in Zion (In- 
dependence, Mo.) in 1833, under the title "Book of 
Commandments," while the present Book of Doctrine 
and Covenants became the law of the church in Kirtland, 
Ohio, in 1835, two years later, having since that time 
gone through several editions, but with material changes. 
But that important changes were made between 1833 
and 1835 is the thought we are now emphasizing, and 
the "revelation" we are now studying is to the point. 
The italicized words in the above quotation can readily 
be contrasted with the italicized words that follow. It 
will be seen that not alone is there a change in person — 
the first being addressed to Martin Harris, and the sec- 
ond addressed to Joseph Smith for Martin Harris — but 
material changes have been made in the thought. In 
fact, so great are these changes that the one contradicts 
the other. Let us note them: 

I, the Lord, am God, and have given these things to you, my 
servant Joseph Smith, Jr., and I have commanded you, that you 
should stand as a witness of these things ; and I have caused 
that you should not show them except to those persons to whom 
I command you; and you have no power over them except. I 
grant it unto you. And you have a gift to translate the plates, 
and this is the first gift, that I have bestowed upon you, and I 
have commanded you that you should pretend to no other gift 
until my purpose is fulfilled in this; for I will grant you no 
other gift until it is finished. 1 

When we pause to consider that between the first 
publication and the second the hierarchy had arisen, 
and that Joseph had to make room for himself in that 

1 D. & C, Sec. iv. 



208 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

ecclesiastical order somewhere, and when we note that 
in the first he was prohibited from laying claim to any 
other "gift," then we can see what is at once the im- 
portance of, and the occasion for, the radical change 
appearing in the second. At first, his only gift was to 
"translate," but when, in the course of a little more than 
a year, he was aspiring to new offices, his first pretension 
was only his first gift, and the Lord's determination to 
refuse him any other was modified to read "until it (the 
first) is finished." 

That we are absolutely correct in this conclusion is 
shown by Whitmer's historical note of this very period 
that is now under review. In his protest against the 
innovation of introducing the priesthood, which, of 
course, meant the high offices in the church, Whitmer 
asks: 

Who was the "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" of the church 
at Jerusalem? They had none. Who was the "Prophet, Seer 
and Revelator" to the church upon this land (as described in 
the Book of Mormon) ? They had none. And had no such 
offices in the church in the first eight months of its existence, 
until Brother Joseph went into error on Apr. 6, 1830, and after 
unwittingly breaking the command of God by taking upon him- 
self such an office. ... In a few years these revelations were 
changed to admit this high office, which otherwise would have 
condemned it. They were changed to mean something entirely 
different from the way they were first given in the Book of 
Commandments ; as if God had not thought of this important 
office when he gave those revelations. Yet in the face of the 
written word of God, and in the face of all this evidence,, the 
majority of the Latter-day Saints will still cling to the revela- 
tions of Joseph Smith and measure the written word of God 
by them, instead of measuring Joseph Smith and his revelations 
by the word of God. 1 

This statement by Whitmer is indisputably correct. 



Whitmer's "Address to Believers," p. 46. 



BOOK OF DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS 209 

and the charge that he here prefers is confirmed not 
alone by his actual knowledge of the affair, but by every 
scrap of history that can be found bearing upon the 
question. And it is not only valuable in confirming the 
charges that we bring against the pseudo-prophet, but it 
strikingly demonstrates that this priesthood, over which 
the Saints fairly rave, is nothing more nor less than the 
development of an idea brought into the church with the 
coming of Sidney Rigdon. Whatever may have been his 
connection in the bringing forth of the Book of Mor- 
mon, and however strenuously he may have denied that 
he had any connection with it, there is no room for doubt 
here, and it brands the whole concern with the crime of 
falsely imputing to God that which is manifestly the 
work of men. 

On Apr. 15, 1829, a new character, one that is des- 
tined to play a star part in the "Comedy of Errors," 
comes upon the stage. We refer, of course, to Oliver 
Cowdery. Mention is here made of his coming because 
that, in chronological sequence, the next "revelation" 
concerns Oliver. Supposedly he had been "called" to 
serve in the Lord's work, but his "call" had some doubts 
of its genuineness. In the absence of anything the more 
authoritative, he was told in this "revelation" that "who- 
soever will thrust in his sickle and reap the same, is 
called of God." This phrase is used very frequently in 
the "revelations" that were given at this early date. It 
would appear that at that time all that was necessary for 
a "call" was a desire to do the work, and it stands in 
marked contrast to that empirical method now employed 
"by the Saints. Cowdery was told that he had a "gift," 
and that it was his duty to exercise it. He was also told 
that this was the "gift of Aaron," whatever that may be, 
and because he had it, it was argued that it came from 



210 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

God. He was cautioned against being overinquisitive, 
for the "revelation" reads : "Do not ask for that which 
ye ought not." 

Before the next communication was received from 
heaven it seems that Cowdery was using his sickle, for 
he was doing a little translating on his own accord, but 
did not know whether he had translated it correctly. 
Likely, Joseph could dictate a little too leisurely for so 
speedy a writer as Cowdery is reputed to be, and he 
thought to supplement the work of the "prophet." To 
settle the doubt that had arisen in his mind, the Lord 
informed him of an infallible rule by which to judge of 
the correctness of his work. Hence he said: 

But behold I say unto you, you must study it out in your 
own mind; then you must ask me if it is right, and if it is 
right, I will cause your bosom to burn within you ; therefore 
you shall feel that it is right ; but if it be not right, you shall 
have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought, 
that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong. 1 

Before he had had opportunity to try this rule, 
although it served to explain to him how Joseph 
discovered the correctness of his translation, the Lord 
placed this injunction against him: 

Now if you had known this, you could have translated; 
nevertheless it is not expedient that you should translate now. 
Behold, it was expedient when you commenced, and the time is 
past, and it is not expedient now ; for do you not behold that T 
have given my servant Joseph sufficient strength, whereby it .-, 
made up, and neither of you have I condemned. 2 

As the translation of the Book of Mormon was 
resumed under Cowdery and Smith, the question pressed 
for answer is, What shall be done about the 116 pages 

*D. & C, viii. 3. 
2 Ibid, viii. 4. 



BOOK OF DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS 211 

lost through the perfidy of Martin Harris? And the 
Lord concludes, as we judge from the "revelation" given 
under date of May, 1829, that Harris is a wicked man, 
subject to the suggestion from Satan to alter the part 
already translated — that is, the 116 pages — so that they 
"will read contrary from that which you have translated 
and caused to be written," and deems it best to forbid 
the attempt to retranslate the plates. They accordingly 
conclude to "let bygones be bygones," and proceed to 
take up the "more particular" account of the record of 
Nephi. At about the same time Hyrum Smith, brother 
to the prophet, is told that he, too, is favored with a 
"gift," but must not presume to preach until he is 
called. He was urged to study "my word which shall 
come forth among the children of men, or that which 
is now translating." He was also cautioned against 
denying the "spirit of revelation" and the spirit of 
prophecy. 

There is one "revelation" which till now we have 
passed by unnoticed; it bears the date of April, 1829. 
As we shall see, this is near the time that Cowdery 
became associated with Smith. In spite of their exces- 
sive work of translating and writing in duplicate, they 
seemed to have time to "argue Scripture," for they fell 
into a discussion of that part of the Gospel of John 
which deals with the future of that apostle (John 21 : 
22). These men could not determine from the reading 
of that whether it was the Lord's purpose to take John 
from the earth, or was he to remain till the second 
coming of Christ. They agreed to settle it by the Urim 
and Thummim. As this narrative is„ alluded to in the 
Book of Mormon, 1 the probability is that they had read 



L III. Nephi, xxviii. i, et seq. 



212 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

this far in the story furnished them by Rigdon, and in 
the course of their reading they discussed the advisa- 
bility of leaving this in the Book of Mormon. Accord- 
ing to the "revelation" on that subject, John did not 
die, and the use to which this information was put will 
be seen presently. 

Let us now get some dates before us. Joseph has 
this to say of his early acquaintance with Cowdery: 

On the 15th day of April, 1829, Oliver Cowdery came to my 
house, until which time I had never seen him. . . . Two days 
after the arrival of Mr. Cowdery (this would be Apr. 17, 1829), 
I commenced to translate the Book of Mormon, and he com- 
menced to write for me. 1 

Concerning this first meeting of prophet and scribe, 
Cowdery says : 

Near the time of the setting of the sun, Sabbath evening, 
Apr. 5, 1829, my natural eyes, for the first time, beheld this 
brother. He then resided in Susquehanna County, Pennsyl- 
vania. On Monday, the 6th, I assisted him in arranging some 
business of a temporal nature, and on Tuesday, the 7th, com- 
menced to write the Book of Mormon. 2 

Cowdery 's account is probably correct, especially if 
he first saw the prophet on the "Sabbath." Joseph is 
likely confused in his dates, and in making his historical 
notes neglected the use of the Urim and Thummim. 

Now, it was in this same month in which their first 
acquaintance was made that they fell into discussing the 
question of John's remaining on the earth. They were 
fortunate enough to find a parchment "written and hid 
up" by John. As it is not likely that John used the 
"Reformed Egyptian," but the Hellenic Greek instead, 
the versatility of that Urim and Thummim was demon- 



^ullidge, pp. 34, 35. 

2 L. D. 5!. Herald, Vol. II., No. 



BOOK OF DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS 213 

strated when they turned it on this "parchment" and 
were able to translate it. Joseph doubtless studied it out 
in his own mind, and then asked the Lord "if it be 
right." But as Joseph fails to say whether his bosom 
burned within him, or whether he had a stupor of 
thought, we have no way of judging the correctness of 
the translation. Assuming that it was correctly trans- 
lated in the first instance, and as it was published in the 
Book of Commandments, we can hardly see why the 
Lord found it necessary, when the same "revelation" 
was printed in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, to 
use no words more to tell it the second time. The 
wonder may be in part explained when we consider that 
the Lord only followed his own precedent in failing to 
make himself clear in the New Testament, and upon 
second thought more fully explained himself in the 
Book of Mormon. 

As intimated above, this "revelation" played its part. 
It became the foundation of that "yarn" which Smith 
and Cowdery told about John the Baptist appearing to 
them in the woods in May of 1829. This was the time 
that John the Baptist conferred upon them the keys of 
the Aaronic priesthood, and commanded them to baptize 
each other. Joseph says : 

It was on the 15th day of May, 1829, that we were baptized 
and ordained under the hand of the messenger. . . . After a few 
days we commenced to reason out of the Scriptures with our 
acquaintances and our friends as we happened to meet them. 
About this time my brother Samuel Smith came to visit us. . . . 
He, however, was not easily persuaded of these things. ... He 
retired to the woods. . . . The result was that he obtained reve- 
lations sufficient to convince him of the truth of our assertions 
to him, and on the 15th day of the same month in which we 
were baptised and ordained, Oliver Cozvdery baptised him. 1 



'Tullidge, pp. 66, 67. 



2i 4 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Attention is called to the prophet's own testimony 
that he, Oliver Cowdery and Samuel Smith were all bap- 
tized the same day. This is not generally known, as 
Whitmer claims the distinction of having been the third 
person baptized under this new dispensation. He says : 

In June, 1829, the Lord called Oliver Cowdery, Martin Har- 
ris and myself as the three witnesses to behold the vision of the 
angel, as recorded in the fore part of the Book of Mormon, and 
to bear testimony to the world that the Book of Mormon is 
true. ... In this month (June, 1829) I was baptized and ordained 
an elder in the church of Christ by Brother Joseph Smith. Pre- 
vious to this, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had baptized, 
confirmed and ordained each other to the office of elder in the 
church of Christ. I was the third person baptized into the 
church. 1 

Evidently there is some confusion here, and the itali- 
cized words above serve to fix the error. The fact is that 
Smith is the poorest historian that the church ever had. 
So many were the lies that he told of one kind and 
another that he could but be confused when he descended 
into details. Says the old proverb : "Thou canst not bet- 
ter reward a liar than in not believing what he speaketh." 



l Whitmer's "Address to Believers," p. 32. 



DOCTRINE AND COVEN ANTS— CONTINUED 21$ 



CHAPTER XVI. 
The Book of Doctrine and Covenants — Continued. 

One Joseph Knight was made the subject of a revela 
tion, and being such an inconsequential character, one 
can but wonder why this heavenly energy should have 
been used with such prodigality. He lived at Colesville, 
N. Y., Colesville being the name of a township in 
Broome County, and appears to be about thirty miles 
distant from the spot in Susquehanna County, Pa., 
where Joseph is now residing. But he was doubt- 
less a generous soul, and several times he made that 
journey from his home to Joseph, bringing supplies for 
the prophet's sustenance. Joseph might have very fit- 
tingly appropriated apostolic language in saying, "Silver 
and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee," 
forthwith producing a "revelation." Thus early did 
Knight receive a "prophet's reward." 

In June of that year Joseph removed to the home of 
the Whitmers, hence we are not surprised that David, 
John and Peter Whitmer should receive word from the 
Lord to "thrust in the sickle and reap," and any one 
doing this was "called of God." It was in this month 
that two of the Whitmers and Hyrum Smith were bap- 
tized, and the historian says "from this time forth many 
became believers and were baptized." Just how many 
we do not know, but if the company was large, it is pass- 
ing strange that there should have been only six of the 
number present on Apr. 6, 1830, when the church was 
"regularly organized." 

In the Book of Doctrine and Covenants (Sec. 15) 



■2i6 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

there is printed a "revelation" given to Oliver Cowdery, 
David Whitmer and Martin Harris, in June, 1829, a 
revelation of which it is said that it was given previously 
to the "three" having viewed the plates. In this "revela- 
tion" they had been promised a view of the Lord's entire 
exhibit of the Lord's instruments in bringing forth the 
Book of Mormon ; that is, they were to see the plates, 
the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and 
Thummim. and the miraculous directors. Keeping in 
mind now that the Book of Doctrine and Covenants was 
published in 1835, and the Book of Commandments was 
published in 1833, tms revelation does not appear in the 
earlier book at all ; it is in it nowhere from cover to 
cover. The inference is conclusive, that this section was 
added to the later book, is itself a more modern publica- 
tion, is a fabrication pure and simple, and was given for 
the express purpose of making coherent a yarn which 
under the wind of discussion incident to the coming 
forth of the Book of Mormon was being whipped into 
shreds. 

In this same month of June, 1829, the Lord com- 
municated with Joseph, David, Oliver and Martin re- 
specting the calling of twelve "disciples," so says the 
heading to the "revelation" in the Book of Command- 
ments, but which in the later book reads "twelve apos- 
tles." In that communication David and Oliver are par- 
ticularly mentioned as having the power to search out 
the twelve. This has been our contention all the time 
that the "apostles" of Mormonism were called by men, 
and according to this "revelation" their commission was 
"to ordain priests and teachers and to declare my gospel 
according to the power of the Holy Ghost, which is in 
you, and according to the calling and gifts of God unto 
men." Cowdery was addressed in this fashion : "I speak 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 217 

unto you, even as unto Paul mine apostle, for you are 
called even with that same calling with which he was 
called." This indicates that the early notion of these 
men was that the "three" should be the "apostles," but at 
a later time, seeing the seeming incongruity of having 
twelve "apostles," and seeing also that they could make 
some stations that are just a little higher up in power 
and glory, they could easily forego this honor, in view 
of the higher that was within their reach. Further,, 
never in fact, nor in claim, was Oliver Cowdery an 
"apostle." 

On that eventful day in April, 1830, revelations were 
received for the entire membership of the new church. 
In the Book of Commandments these are spread out 
over chapters 17 to 21, inclusive, and were directed to 
Oliver Cowdery, Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, Joseph- 
Smith, Sr., and Joseph Knight, but which chapters in 
the later book have been combined in a single section 
(Sec. 21). Each received the assurance that he was 
under no condemnation. But sometime during the month 
of April the question arose as to the necessity of rebap- 
tizing people who sought fellowship with this "regularly 
organized" church," and as usual a revelation was at 
hand. All former baptism, according to it, was value- 
less, for "although a man be baptized an hundred times,, 
it availeth him nothing." This rule has prevailed with, 
the church ever since. As a church it has never been 
evangelistic, but has confined its labors to proselyting, 
and of course has frequent occasion to bring this rule 
into operation. Even apostates from the Saints who 
renew their old fellowship, are again baptized "for the 
remission of sins." The only notable exception to this 
rule was the prophet. "The first elder" (Joseph), who, 
after he had received remission of sins, "was entangled 



218 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

again in the vanities of the world," but after "repenting 
sincerely through faith, God ministered unto him by an 
holy angel." This is the same God whose unchangeable- 
ness the Saints love to declare, and who is said to be "no 
respecter of persons." 

In our haste, we must not pass by a revelation re- 
ceived in 1830, in the month of March, and was sent for 
Martin Harris' benefit. Poor Martin ! He had to listen 
to stuff like this : "For behold the mystery of godliness, 
how great is it? For behold I am endless, and the pun- 
ishment which is given from my hand is endless punish- 
ment, for Endless is my name. Wherefore I command 
you by my name and by my almighty power that you 
repent: repent lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, 
and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your suffering 
be sore. How sore you know not! How exquisite (sic) 
you know not ! Yea, how hard to bear you know not !" 
And then, right in the midst of these expletives and 
this direful expostulation, the modern book interpolates 
this further command: "Wherefore I command you to 
repent, and keep the commandments which you have 
received by the hand of my servant, Joseph Smith, Jr., 
in my name. ... I command you that thou shalt not 
covet thy neighbor's wife. And again I command 
you that thou shalt not covet thine own property, but 
impart it freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon. 
. . . Impart a portion of thy property; yea, a part of all 
thy lands, and all save the support of thy family. Pay 
the printer's debt. Release thyself from bondage (mort- 
gage). Leave thy house and home, except when thou 
shalt desire to see them." What must have been his 
answer to the Lord's interrogatory: "Behold, canst thou 
read this without rejoicing and lifting up thy heart for 
gladness ?" ! Doubtless his expression was much in the 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 219 

language that Joseph says he used on the day that he 
saw the plates : "Martin Harris cried out apparently in 
ecstacy of joy, 'It is enough! Mine eyes have beheld!' 
And. jumping up, he shouted, 'Hosanna!' blessing God, 
and otherwise rejoiced exceedingly." It was certainly 
an occasion of "exquisite" delight. 

We saw by the revelation of June, 1830, that God 
had squared the account with Joseph in his transgression 
by sending an angel to minister to him, but in the very 
next month, July, 1830, the Lord had occasion to censure 
Joseph for ingratitude. God had lifted him out of afflic- 
tions and delivered him from all enemies, and "from the 
powers of Satan and all darkness," but now directs the 
prophet's attention to the transgressions by saying: 
"Nevertheless, thou art not excusable in thy transgres- 
sions ; nevertheless, go thy way and sin no more." Then 
he tells Joseph that, after the summer's crops are in — 
July is already late enough for that — he should be im- 
mune against any further manual labor, for the promise 
now was, "And in temporal labors thou shalt not have 
strength, for this is not thy calling." Apart from a 
little experience in "banking," we have no record that he 
ever "broke over," nor does his early history seriously 
impute to him a habit of work. This is one revelation 
that has not been changed, and for which he could find 
no need to enlarge it for the prophet's benefit ; the read- 
ings in the Book of Commandments and in the Book of 
Doctrine and Covenants are without variation. 

All too long has the prophet's own family circle suf- 
fered neglect at the hand of the Lord. The old adage 
has it that the "shoemaker's wife goes barefoot," so 
finally, in the month of July, 1830, the word of the Lord 
came to Mrs. Emma Smith, the prophet's wife. It is in 
this revelation that she gets her title, "the elect lady." 



220 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Notwithstanding that it has been the rule of the church 
to refuse to ordain a woman, the revelation says: "And 
thou shalt be ordained under his {Joseph's)- hand to 
expound the Scripture, and to exhort the church as it 
shall be given thee of my Spirit. ... And it shall be 
given thee also to make a selection of sacred hymns, as 
it shall be given thee, to be had in my church." 

In August of that year Smith moved to Fayette, 
N. Y. There he learned that Hiram Page was giving 
forth revelation which he had received through a "seer 
stone." This new Saul who had arisen among the 
prophets had to be discredited. Some of the Whitmers, 
as also Oliver Cowdery, were believing in the things set 
forth in this stone, and Joseph, knowing of no other way 
to meet the conditions, inquired of the Lord, and, as 
could be expected, got a revelation. It bears the date of 
September, 1830. In it Oliver is given to understand 
that "no one shall be appointed to receive revelations in 
the church excepting my servant, Joseph Smith, Jr. . . . 
If thou art led at any time ... to speak or teach . . . 
thou mayest do it. But thou shalt not write by zvay of 
commandment, but by wisdom; and thou shalt not com- 
mand him who is at thy head, and at the head of the 
church." Having demonstrated to Oliver that there is 
an anatomical incongruity in the "tail trying to wag the 
dog," he commissioned him to go to the Lamanites, and 
while prosecuting that work he should be permitted to 
have revelations, but should not write them by way of 
commandment. And to get Page out of the way of his 
present environment, where it was known that he was a 
rival to the prophet, Cowdery was requested to take him 
along with him, and persuade him that the things which 
Page had been speaking were not from the Lord, but 
that Satan had deceived him. Furthermore, let him 






DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 221 

know that the Lord had not called Page to this work 
anyway. 

The sequel was : 

At length our conference assembled; the subject of the stone 
was discussed, and after considerable investigation Brother Page, 
as well as the whole church, who were present, renounced said 
stone and all connection therewith, much to our mutual satis- 
faction and happiness. . . . Thus it was settled that Joseph alone 
was the Moses of the church ; even Oliver Cowdery dared not 
presume to be more than Aaron. 

Thus this "regularly organized" church, established 
after the pattern given by the Lord, in which he "set 
some in the church, first, apostles, and, secondarily, 
prophets," decided that Hiram Page was not entitled to 
the honor of this position ; and the church never had 
more than the one prophet. 

In September, 1830, a revelation appears in behalf of 
the work of one T. B. Marsh, who was later chosen as 
one of the "twelve" at Kirtland, Ohio. In this message 
the Lord complimented "my son," as he called him, for 
his fidelity to the cause, in spite of some trouble that 
had arisen between him and his family. Prophecy was 
made that he should preach, finally coming back "laden 
with sheaves on his back." He was further informed 
that "I," the Lord, "will establish a church by your 
hand; and you shall strengthen them and prepare them 
against the time when they shall be gathered." History 
fails to record any such signal triumphs in the labors of 
this man. He went with the Saints to Missouri, and on 
March 17, 1839, was formally excommunicated from the 
church. He does not appear to have come back with his 
"sheaves." As early as October, 1838, he made affidavit 
charging Smith with being the organizer of the "Dan- 
ites." It will do the Saints no good to heap opprobrium 



222 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

upon the head of Marsh, no matter whether he is inno- 
cent or guilty of any sins, for all that they say will only 
be for the demonstration of the fact that that prophecy 
never "came to pass." 

It was near this period that the church made its most 
valuable acquisition, in the persons of the two Pratts and 
Sidney Rigdon. The exact dates we can not ascertain, 
but the Pratts seem to have united in about October, 
1830. In that month, Parley Pratt and Ziba Peterson 
were directed to go into the wilderness to preach to the 
Lamanites, but they only got as far as the Western 
Reserve in Ohio, and captured Rigdon. In November, 
1830, Orson Pratt began to preach, and in December of 
that same year Rigdon had found his way to Fayette 
for a personal interview with the prophet. The Lord 
appeared to be only fairly well pleased with Rigdon, 
but so far acknowledged his worth by allowing him to 
assume the role of John the Baptist in the New Dis- 
pensation. The chief places are getting pretty well filled. 
Smith is Moses, Cowdery is Aaron, Rigdon is John the 
Baptist; only Harris received an uncomplimentary title, 
he being called "a wicked man." It looks as if the Lord 
did not appreciate Harris' contribution to the success of 
launching this new enterprise, for manifestly, without 
him to pay the printer, the " fullness of the everlasting 
gospel" would have remained in manuscript form for a 
considerable time. 

About this time was born the idea of the "inspired 
translation of the Scriptures," for Sidney was directed 
"to write," and "the Scriptures shall be given you, even 
as they are in my own bosom, to the salvation of mine 
elect." It really looks as if Sidney, and not Smith, was 
"called" to do the translating. It is true that the Smiths 
now give Joseph the credit for it, but unquestionably the 




SIDNEY RIGDON. 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 22$ 

work was Rigdon's. Sidney early found favor in the 
eyes of the prophet, and although the commission to the 
""twelve" was that they should ordain, Edward Part- 
ridge was ordained "by the hand of my servant Sidney 
Rigdon." Joseph apparently had forgotten the instruc- 
tion that the Lord imparted earlier on the subject of 
ordination, so, taking Rigdon into partnership with him- 
self, said : "And now this calling and commandment give 
I unto you concerning all men, that as many as shall 
come before my servants Sidney Rigdon and Joseph 
Smith, Jr., embracing this calling and commandment, 
shall be ordained and sent forth to preach the everlast- 
ing gospel among all nations." 

That they went right to work at their translation, 
known as "the inspired translation of the Holy Scrip- 
tures," is evident from the revelation given in December 
while Sidney was yet in Fayette, for they are told that 
"it is not expedient in me that ye should translate any 
more until ye shall go into Ohio." For the time being 
they should continue to build up the church, especially in 
Colesville, N. Y., after which the Lord would declare 
that "it is expedient in me that ye should assemble to- 
gether in Ohio." 

Then follows a revelation under date of January, 
1 83 1, but so palpably absurd was the whole of it, and so 
ignominiously did it fail, and so miserably had Joseph's 
prophecy miscarried, that he got word from the Lord 
"by return mail" explaining the failure. James Covill 
was the subject of the revelation, and apparently war- 
ranted at the time the enthusiastic prophecy made con- 
cerning him, for had he not promised Joseph that he 
would obey the word? But when he saw how the Saints 
were persecuted, and when he remembered his worldly 
cares, he rejected the word and broke the covenant. 



224 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Thus by the second revelation so soon was the reputation 
of the prophet spared. 

Ere we note the departure of the Saints from the 
East, perhaps we had better give our attention to a 
"revelation" that for some reason was overlooked when 
the committee on printing and custodians of the revela- 
tions prepared their copy for the Book of Command- 
ments, and which for likely the same reason they failed 
to discover it when they revised that book into the Book 
of Doctrine and Covenants. We are indebted to Whit- 
mer for the record of there ever having been such a 
revelation. He says : 

When the Book of Mormon was in the hands of the printer, 
more money was needed to finish the printing of it. We were 
waiting for Martin Harris to sell his farm. . . . Brother Hyrum 
was vexed with Brother Martin, and thought they should get the 
money by some means outside of him, and not let him have any- 
thing to do with the publication of the book. . . . Brother Hyrum 
said it had been suggested to him that some of the brethren 
might go to Toronto, Canada, and sell the copyright of the Book 
of Mormon for considerable money. . . . He persuaded Joseph 
to inquire of the Lord about it. Joseph concluded to do so. He 
had not yet given up the stone. Joseph looked into his hat, in 
which he placed the stone, and received a revelation that some 
of the brethren should go to Canada and they would sell the 
copyright of the Book of Mormon. Hiram Page and Oliver 
Cowdery went, but they failed entirely to sell the copyright, and 
returned without any money. Joseph was at my father's house 
when they returned. I was there also, and was an eye-witness 
to these facts. Jacob Whitmer and John Whitmer were also 
present. . . . We were in great trouble ; and we asked Joseph 
how it was that he had received the revelation from the Lord 
for some of the brethren to go to Toronto, Canada, to sell the 
copyright, and the brethren had utterly failed in their under- 
taking. Joseph did not know how it was, so he inquired of the 
Lord about it, and, behold, the following revelation came through 
the stone: "Some revelations are of God, some revelations are 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 225 

of man, and some revelations are of the devil." So we see that 
the revelation to go to Toronto and sell the copyright was not 
of God, but was of the devil, or of the heart of man. . . . Many 
of Brother Joseph's revelations were never printed. The revela- 
tion to go tc Canada was written down on paper, but was never 
printed. 

Query: The Saints hold to the insufficiency of the 
Old and New Testaments because we do not have all of 
them. They also claim that the Book of Mormon and 
the Book of Doctrine and Covenants make up that lack. 
Have they not suffered an irreparable loss in allowing 
any of Joseph's revelations to remain unprinted? We 
should feel prompted to advise their committee on print- 
ing to look up these fugitive pieces before it is everlast- 
ingly too late. 

This properly closes the work of the Saints in the 
East, so far as we are permitted to trace the events of 
their history by ihe aid of their published revelations, 
and with the new year they get their instructions to go 
to Ohio, and with that migration we shall concern our- 
selves in the next chapter. 



226 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER XVII. 
The Book of Doctrine and Covenants — Continued. 

Taking- up again the thread of narrative, we trace the 
Saints from New York to Ohio. "The year opened with 
a prospect great and glorious for the welfare of the 
kingdom; for on the 2d of January, 1831, a conference 
was held in the town of Fayette, N. Y., at which 
was received the following revelation (D. & C, Sec. 38). 
. . . The historical point is that the church was now 
directed to move to Kirtland, Ohio, which became the 
grand 'stake' of Zion, where the first temple of the Lord 
was reared by the Saints in this dispensation." i Ac- 
cordingly, in the latter part of the month of January, 
Joseph and his wife, accompanied by Sidney Rigdon and 
Edward Partridge, came to Kirtland, Ohio. The time 
was not long, with the careful tilling the soil had re- 
ceived by Rigdon during his ministry there, till a church 
grew up with an approximate membership of one hun- 
dred. 

It is difficult, at this remote period, to ascertain the 
definite intentions of the Saints at that tin;e. Perhaps 
there had been some glowing promises made by Rigdon,, 
so that after much necessary consultation they felt that 
Kirtland would be a much better field than was the ter- 
ritory less remote from the spot where the imposition 
came into being. Possibly Joseph felt that "a prophet 
is not without honor save in his own country," and was 
really glad to get away from the people, who, if we may 
believe the stories that were soon set afloat, held him in 



'Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet," pp. 110-112. 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 227 

such low esteem. The added knowledge which Rigdon 
must have possessed of his own people, as well as of the 
temper of the people generally in the vicinity of Kirt- 
land, might have become a strong incentive to make the 
move. They never appeared fully at ease, and all the 
time had a desire looking toward the West, which, if 
even it did possess some border ruffianism, would also 
be virgin soil for the culture of the fraud. They were 
never able to entirely dispossess themselves of the belief 
that they were to have a "gathering." A Zion of the 
vast proportions planned by them was well-nigh out of 
the question in the more densely populated East, where 
the price of land was higher than on the frontier, and 
this would have the tendency to cause furtive glances to 
be cast in a western direction. Be that as it may, there 
are not wanting the evidences producing the conviction 
that their stay in Kirtland was only temporary. Zion 
was their goal. Not that they were aware of its location, 
for Zion had not yet been located, but to some place, they 
were sure, would the Lord lead them at last. 

But whether they had intended to make their resi- 
dence permanent, or to use Kirtland as a mere stopping- 
place, they had not been there long until the heavens 
once more resumed operations, and it was discovered to 
be Heaven's will that "my servant Joseph should have a 
house built in which to live and translate. And again 
it is meet that my servant Sidney should live as it seem- 
eth to him good (inasmuch as he keepeth my command- 
ments)." The words enclosed in parentheses are inter- 
polated into the modern book. 

Into this "regularly organized" church, soon after its 
establishment at Kirtland, was the office of bishop intro- 
duced, Edward Partridge being the first incumbent of 
that office. The "sum and bonum" of this office, to use 



228 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

a phrase which we have been able to discover in no other 
book than that of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, 
was "in administering in all temporal things ; neverthe- 
less, a bishop must be chosen from the high priesthood, 
unless he is a literal descendant of Aaron." He was 
empowered to sit in judgment on transgressors and to do 
the business of the church, and "also to be a judge in 
Israel." Inasmuch as the high priesthood had not at that 
time been established, it follows that the only other claim 
of eligibility that Partridge had was that he was "a 
literal descendant of Aaron;" that is, he was a Jew. In- 
asmuch as we do not have his genealogy, we have no 
way of disproving his claim along that line, but we are 
quite as willing to believe this as we are that the prophet 
was of the "tribe of Ephraim," and no more. 

At Kirtland, Ohio, also, was introduced more specific 
instruction on pistisopathy, if we may be permitted to 
coin the word, for where there was sickness the instruc- 
tion was that "the elders of the church, two or more, 
shall be called, and shall pray for, and lay their hands 
upon them in my name, and if they die they shall die 
unto me, and if they live they shall live unto me. . . . 
And again it shall come to pass that he that hath faith to 
be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be 
healed; and he who hath faith to see shall see ; and he 
who hath faith to hear shall hear; the lame who hath 
faith to leap shall leap ; and they who have not faith to 
do these things, but believe in me, have pozver to become 
my sons." 1 

Understand, now, that, so far as we can discover the 
facts, all these things transpired during that first month 
of their stay in Kirtland, Ohio, and that the revelations 



*D. & C, xlii. 12, 13. 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 229 

did not cease until Joseph and Sidney had received a call 
to bring in the elders from the outlying districts, "by 
letter or some other way," 1 so that God could pour 
out his Spirit upon them in the day that they assembled. 
This occurred on March 7, 1831, when the Lord was 
ready to reveal his will that the Saints should gather out 
of the Eastern lands, and go forth unto the Western 
countries, building churches on the way, and collecting 
funds with which ultimately to purchase their inherit- 
ance. As an assurance to them that the effort was one 
that was worthy of their best devotion, the prophet said: 

It shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that 
will not take his sword against his neighbor, must needs fly to 
Zion for safety. And there shall be gathered unto it out of 
every nation under heaven, and it shall be the only people that 
shall not war one with another. And it shall be said among 
the wicked, Let us go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabit- 
ants of Zion are terrible, wherefore we cannot stand. And it 
shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered out from 
among all nations, and shall come to Zion singing, with songs of 
everlasting joy. 3 

There is no possible construction that can be placed 
on these words but that the facts of history will show 
that the prophecy has failed completely. The Saints 
have never had any Zion that was to them a place of 
safety, surely not Independence, Mo. There has never 
been a time that there has been no internal dissension 
among them; they have always warred, and are as bad 
now as ever ; the wicked have never shrunk from bat- 
tling against the "inhabitants of Zion," and the righteous 
have never come with the songs of everlasting joy. With 
such large pretensions it is no wonder that the Lord 



*D. & C, xliv. 1. 
2 D. & C, xlv. 12, 13. 



230 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

cautioned them to ''keep these things from going abroad, 
until it is expedient in me, that ye may accomplish this 
work in the eyes of the people and in the eyes of your 
enemies, that they may not know your works until is 
accomplished the thing which I have commanded you." L 
We shall see before we are through with our study 
how it was that the "enemies" found it out, and thus pre- 
vented the Lord from finding the "expedient" moment. 
The incident certainly did not add much to Joseph's 
reputation as a "prophet of God," but adds to the odium 
that attaches to his name. 

Events were fast transpiring, and it seemed good to 
the Lord to select a man to "keep a regular history," 2 
and for this purpose chose John Whitmer by revelation 
in March, 183 1. This was because the Lord had ap- 
pointed Cowdery, who had hitherto served in this capac- 
ity, to another "office." At a later time Joseph called in 
question God's wisdom in having made this selection of 
historian. Joseph and John had a falling-out, so when 
Joseph dismissed Whitmer, the prophet said: "Indeed, 
sir, we never supposed you capable of writing a his- 
tory." 3 Thus did Joseph announce the Lord's appoint- 
ment ultra vires. 

There were some right good-sized "oaks" that grew 
from the "acorns" that were planted at Kirtland, Ohio, 
and certainly not the least of these was the priesthood. 
This was clearly the production of Rigdon. Whatever 
else may or may not have been his connection with the 
bringing forth of the Book of Mormon, there can be no 
question as to his connection here. What is meant to 
have organized these leaders into these two priesthoods, 



1 Ibid, xlv. 15. 

2 D. & C, xlvii. 

^Millennial Star, Vol. XVI., p. 133- 



DOCTRINE AND COVEN ANTS— CONTINUED 231 

the reader can ascertain by carefully reading those chap- 
ters in which we discussed that subject. 

It will be recalled that Oliver Cowdery, Parley Pratt, 
Peter Whitmer, Jr., and Ziba Peterson had gone to 
Missouri in quest of a location for Zion. By a revelation 
dated May, 1831, we infer that the Saints at Kirtland 
were anxiously awaiting news from these men, and 
temporarily they would stay at Kirtland, but were pre- 
tending they would stay "upon this land as for years." 
Finally the good news arrived, and the Lord promptly 
acknowledged the receipt of it by a message given in 
June, 1831, saying: "Let my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., 
and Sidney Rigdon take their journey as soon as prepa- 
rations can be made to leave their home, and journey to 
the land of Missouri." 

Lyman Wight, John Corrill, John Murdock and Hy- 
rum Smith were commissioned to go also, but they were 
to go by way of Detroit. Later the Lord thought it 
"expedient" to send Thomas Marsh, Ezra Thayer, Isaac 
Morley and Ezra Booth to the same land. Twenty more 
were paired of! two and two; some of these, however, 
had their "call" "revoked." As a final preparation, word 
was given to "let my servants Joseph Smith, Jr., and Sid- 
ney Rigdon and Edward Partridge take with them a 
recommend from the church. And let there be one taken 
for my servant Oliver Cowdery also ; and thus, even as 
I said, if ye are faithful, ye shall assemble yourselves 
together to rejoice upon the land of Missouri." They 
reached their destination, Independence, Jackson Co., 
Mo., about the middle of July, 1831. 

When Joseph first saw Zion, a spot, as he thought, 
midway between the oceans, he said "it bids fair to 
become one of the most blessed places on the earth," and 
yet one can but feel that there must have been a pang of 



22,2 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

disappointment that seized him and his followers when 
they realized that they had gone well-nigh half across 
the continent, with but little that was tangible of the 
prophesied plenty. The natural prospect was fair, and, 
following Tullidge, Joseph's mind was filled with painful 
reflections on account of the "degradation, leanness of 
intellect, ferocity and jealousy of a people who were 
nearly a century behind the time." Continuing, he adds : 
"His anxious thoughts were soon relieved by a revelation 
declaring that Independence was the center of the land 
of promise, directing where the temple should be located, 
and what lands should be purchased for the Saints, and 
how distributed or apportioned to them ; also making cer- 
tain directions as to their temporal well-being, etc., etc., 
and directing the final gathering of the body of the 
church." 1 Sidney Gilbert was chosen as the agent of 
the church to handle the moneys ; Edward Partridge 
was to make the division of the land ; Gilbert was to con- 
duct a store, and W. W. Phelps was to run the printing 
business, with Cowdery as assistant (proofreader or 
"devil" is not affirmed). All who went were not de- 
lighted with the prospect, and, upon returning, some of 
them, notably. Ezra Booth, renounced the cult. It was 
not an unmixed blessing — this going to Missouri. 

For the time being, it may be well to leave our 
prophet in the "land of promise," while we go back to 
the Western Reserve. During the "prophet's" stay in 
Kirtland, he learned of the "liberal"-minded people in 
Hiram, a little town about thirty miles from Kirtland 
and a slightly longer distance east of Cleveland; Ohio. 
Entering that hamlet with a company of workers, among 
others he secured a convert by the name of Symonds 



l Tullidge's "Life of Joseph the Prophet," p. 117. 



DOCTRINE AND COVEN ANTS— CONTINUED- 233: 

Ryder. In a letter, many years after he had apostatized 
from the Saints, for he did not long remain with them, 
he explained the ill treatment accorded Joseph and Sid- 
ney by the Hiramites, in the following words : 

During the next spring and summer several converts were 
made, and their (the Saints) success seemed to indicate an im- 
mediate triumph in Hiram. But when they went to Missouri to 
lay the foundation of the splendid city of Zion, and also of the 
temple, they left their papers behind. This gave the new con- 
verts an opportunity to become acquainted with the internal 
arrangement of the church, which revealed to them the horrid 
fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and 
place under the control of Joseph Smith the prophet. 1 

This, according to Ryder, was the direct cause of the 
maltreatment of the Mormons when they again came 
to Hiram. There is no good reason to question either 
the historical or philosophical accuracy of that statement. 

During Smith's sojourn in "Zion," and, to be exact,, 
in August, 183 1, he received a revelation exhorting Mar- 
tin Harris to "be an example to the church in laying his 
moneys before the bishop of the church." 2 Sidney 
Rigdon was "commanded to write a description of the 
land of Zion, and a statement of the will of God as it 
shall be made known by the Spirit unto him." Further 
honors awaited him, for it was he who was to dedicate 
the land and the spot of the "temple of the Lord." Sid- 
ney was an undutiful servant, for in that same month he 
learned that "I, the Lord, am not well pleased with my 
servant Sidney Rigdon, for he exalted himself in his 
heart, and received not counsel, but grieved the Spirit ; 
wherefore his writing is not acceptable unto the Lord, 
and he shall make another, and if the Lord receive it not,. 



1 Hayden's "Early History of the Disciples in Western Reserve," p. 221.. 
2 D. & C, lviii. 7. 



234 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

behold he standeth no longer in the office which I have 
appointed him." As he continued his appointment for a 
considerable time at least, it would seem that his second 
attempt was more pleasing to the Lord. 

The prophet left Zion on Aug. 9, 1831, for Kirt- 
land, reaching home, as he says, safe and well, on Aug. 
27, 1 83 1. Strictly speaking, he was now "from Mis- 
souri," and, hearing that affairs had not gone just right 
during his absence, and hoping to disentangle some of 
the snarls, he had the Lord to "show him." Some there 
were who sought "signs," but the Lord said, "Faith 
cometh not by signs, but signs follow those who believe." 
"There are among you adulterers and adulteresses," ex- 
claims the prophet to his recreant flock. Conditions were 
bad enough, but, as bad as they were, the important mat- 
ter was the status of "Zion." It was still the declared 
will of God that the Saints should gather in Zion, but 
bere there was to be conferred upon Joseph a rather 
unusual "gift" — he was to be able to discern by the Spirit, 
who should go up to Zion, and who should tarry. Zion 
was hard pressed for money, and whoever would send up 
treasures should receive an inheritance in this world, and 
bis works should follow him. 

Whether it was through lack of confidence in the 
"security" we do not know ; but the fact is, pecuniary 
assistance was slow in moving Zionward. The churches 
in the East were not duly impressed with the Missouri 
situation ; at any rate, they were not so enthusiastic as 
the prophet. Consequently he was compelled to do the 
best he could with the little he had, and stay with the 
churches in the East. 

In September of 1831, about one month after his 
return from Missouri, the prophet removed with his 
fami 1 to Hiram Ohio. In October of that year, in the 



DOCTRINE AND COVEN ANTS— CONTINUED 235 

home of one of the Saints, there was held a conference 
in which it was decided to have published the revelations. 
Oliver Cowdery was chosen as "the vessel of the Lord" 
to carry these papers to Independence, Mo., where 
was stationed W. W. Phelps, the official printer. The 
final revelation authorizing the publication was announced 
in November, almost one month after the conference had 
determined upon its expediency. This revelation made 
choice of Joseph Smith, Jr., Martin Harris, Oliver Cow- 
dery, John Whitmer, Sidney Rigdon and W. W. Phelps 
as "stewards over the revelations and commandments 
which I have given them, and which I shall hereafter 
give unto them." It is to be noted that David Whitmer 
is not on this committee, for the revelations were printed, 
so he says, over his protest. 

In the reference made above to the letter of Symonds 
Ryder, we observed the fact that while Joseph was in 
Missouri, having left his papers at home, that publicity 
was given the plans contained in them, which when made 
known to the citizens of Hiram so incensed them that 
their ire was not satisfied until they had applied to the 
naked bodies of Smith and Rigdon an ample "coat of 
tar and feathers." There is no doubt of the historical 
correctness of this defilement, which is said to have 
occurred on the night of March 25, 1832. Joseph had 
not remained continuously in Hiram from the time of 
his removal there until this eventful night in March, for 
he mentions having attended a council or conference 
held at Amherst, Lorain Co., Ohio, on Jan. 25, 1832, 
where he was acknowledged the president of the high 
priesthood. We should have mentioned that in June 
before this Lyman Wight, John Murdock, Harvey Whit- 
lock, Hyrum Smith and Reynolds Cahoon had been 
ordained to the office of high priests. Whitmer says that 



236 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

upon this occasion Lyman Wight prophesied that there 
were some in the congregation that should live until the 
Saviour would descend with a shout with all the holy- 
angels with him. There is no record of the event having* 
transpired to this date, and as the lapse of time is well- 
nigh seventy-six years, and as the minimum age at which 
one might unite with the Saints is generally held to be 
eight years, the youngest of them would be eighty- four 
years, or upward, of age. It is barely possible that this, 
prophecy will be fulfilled, but, following Whitmer, "the 
early future will determine as to whether this prophecy 
was true or false." * The probability is that the "pro- 
fessors" and "students" alike in the "school of the 
prophets" have ignominiously. failed. It can not well be 
otherwise. 

I can not forbear giving here Whitmer's ideas of 
Joseph, Sidney and the priesthood generally. He says: 

The error was introduced at the instigation of Sidney Rig- 
don. The office of high priest was never spoken of, and never 
thought of being established in the church, until Rigdon came 
in. Remember that we had been preaching from August, 1829, 
until June, 1831, almost two years, and had baptized about two 
thousand converts into the church of Christ, and had not one 
high priest. During 1829 we were told several times by Brother 
Joseph that an elder was the highest office in the church. In 
December, 1830, Sidney Rigdon and Edward Partridge came 
from Kirtland, Ohio, to Fayette, New York, to see Brother 
Joseph, and in the latter part of the winter they returned to 
Kirtland, Ohio. In February, 1831, Brother Joseph came to 
Kirtland, where Rigdon was. 

Rigdon was a thorough Bible scholar, a man of fine educa- 
tion and a powerful orator. He soon worked himself deep into 
Brother Joseph's affections, and had more influence over him 
than any other man living. He was Brother Joseph's private 
counselor, and his most intimate friend and brother for some 



^'Address to Believers in Christ," p. 65. 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 237 

time after they met. Brother Joseph rejoiced, believing the 
Lord had sent him this great and mighty man, Sidney Rigdon, 
to help him in the work. Poor Brother Joseph.! He was .mis- 
taken about this, and likewise all of the brethren were mistaken 
about this; for we thought at that time just as Brother Joseph 
did about it. But, alas ! in a few years wc found out different. 
Sidney Rigdon was the cause of almost all the errors which 
were introduced while he was in the church. 

I believe Rigdon to have been the instigator of the secret 
organization known as the "Danites," which were found in Far 
West, Missouri, in June, 1838. In Kirtland, Ohio, in 1831, Rig- 
don would expound the Scriptures of the Bible and Book 61 
Mormon (in his way) to Joseph, concerning the priesthood, the 
high priest, priests, etc., and would persuade Brother Joseph to 
inquire of the Lord about this doctrine and about that doctrine, 
and of course a revelation would always come just as they de- 
sired it. Rigdon finally persuaded Brother Joseph to believe that 
high priests, which had such great power in ancient times, snould 
be in the church of Christ to-day. He had Brother Joseph to 
inquire of the Lord about it, and they received an answer .ac- 
cording to their erring desires. Remember that this revelation 
came like the one to ordain Brother Joseph "Prophet, Seer iand 
Revelator" to the church through Brother Joseph as the mouth- 
piece, and not through the stone. Remember, also, that "some 
revelations are of God, some revelations are of man, and .some 
revelations are of the devil." 1 

Plainly, Whitmer does not accept the priesthood as 
having come from God, or that it has acted with the 
authority of God. He places the responsibility where it 
rightfully belongs, with Smith and Rigdon. These facts 
unerringly point to the conclusion reached in a former 
chapter, where we said that these pseudo-Saints had 
never heard any voice higher than the voice of man, and 
in that conclusion alone can we find the means of har- 
monizing the known facts incident to the rise of the 
priesthood. 



'"Address to Believers in Christ," p. 35. 



238 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Book of Doctrine and Covenants — Continued. 

Following the "tar-and- feathers" incident at Hiram, 
the prophet and his coadjutor, Sidney Rigdon, went 
to Independence, Mo., via Warren, Ohio, and Wheel- 
ing, W. Va., thence by boat to St. Louis, and then 
overland to their destination, reaching "Zion" in time to 
call a conference of the church on Apr. 26, 1832. At 
this conference the prophet was given the right hand of 
fellowship as the president of the high priesthood, by 
Edward Partridge, the scene, according to Tullidge, be- 
ing "solemn, impressive and delightful." The doctrinal 
pronouncement did not arrive from the Lord until Sept. 
22 and 23, 1832. It took the Lord two days to deliver it. 

Having comforted the Saints in Missouri for a brief 
time, the prophet, itinerant that he was, undertook what 
proved to him to be a difficult journey for Kirtland, 
Ohio, leaving Independence on May 6, 1832. As the 
company was nearing New Albany, Ind., Elder Whit- 
ney was seriously injured in a runaway, and was detained 
at that point for a number of weeks. Joseph remained 
with Whitney, while Rigdon went on to Kirtland. Tul- 
lidge quotes Joseph in relating a remarkable incident that 
happened during this period of detention. An attempt 
had been made by anti-Mormons to poison Joseph, and 
he says : 

One day, when I arose from the table, I walked directly to 
the door and began vomiting most profusely. I raised large 
quantities of blood and poisonous matter, and so great were the 
contortions of my muscular system that my jaw was dislocated 



DOCTRINE AND COVEN ANTS— CONTINUED 239 

in a few moments. This I succeeded in replacing with my own 
hands, and then I made my way to Brother Whitney (who was 
on his bed) as speedily as possible. He laid his hands on me, 
and administered to me in the name of the Lord, and I was 
healed in an instant, although the effect of the poison had been 
so powerful as to cause much of the hair to become loosened 
from my head. 1 

D. H. Bays has demurred from the statement here 
made, issuing several reasons for the incredibility of the 
tale. Summarized, they are as follows : No proof was 
offered to show that poison had been administered to 
Smith by anybody — he only suspected it ; no analysis had 
been made of the ''poisonous matter" by a competent 
person, which would be the only means of determining 
the correctness of the suspicion; the fact that Smith 
turned sick at the table might have been produced in 
various ways, in the absence of poison; that the fact that 
Whitney laid his hands on Smith is no proof that he 
"healed" him, as the "vomiting" would tend to give 
relief from his nausea ; that God never does anything by 
halves, hence the improbability of him having healed the 
prophet, while permitting the deleterious effects of the 
poison to loose the prophet's hair ; and, finally, that if 
God healed Smith under these circumstances, why did he 
not heal Whitney's broken leg? 

The prophet reached his home finally and soon pre- 
pared to take a trip East. I have not been able to dis- 
cover for what purpose this trip was taken, but he "made 
a rapid journey to Albany, N. Y., and Boston, and 
returned on the sixth day of November, where he first 
saw his son, Joseph, who had been born on the sixth." 2 
This son finally became, and is now, the head of 
the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 

1 "Life of the Prophet," pp. 141, 142. 
2 "Life of the Prophet," p. 142. 



240 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Saints. Joseph's trip might have had something to do 
with the raising of funds, for according to the Book of 
Doctrine and Covenants (Sec. 83) the chief financial 
burden now resting on his shoulders was "the bringing 
forth of the revelations and the printing thereof and for 
establishing Zion." And thereby hangs a tale. 

According to Ryder, as we have seen, it was the 
inside history and purposes of the Saints, when disclosed 
to the Hiramites, that led to the rejection of the prophet,, 
and his consequent maltreatment by that community ; so 
in this instance we shall learn that the publication of the 
revelation in the Book of Commandments finally led to 
the expulsion of the Saints from Missouri. Whitmer 
says: 

The main reason why the printing-press was destroyed was 
because they published the Book of Commandments. It fell into 
the hands of the world, and the people of Jackson County, Mis- 
souri, saw from the revelation that they were considered by the 
church as intruders upon the land of Zion, as enemies to the 
church, and that they should be cut off out of the land of Zion 
and sent away. 1 

Whitmer is correct in his observation, for as early as 
the spring of 1833 the Lord cautioned the Saints to "keep 
these things from the world, until it is expedient in me 
that ye may accomplish the work in the eyes of your 
enemies, that they may not know your works until ye 
have accomplished the thing which I have commanded 
you" (D. & C. 45: 15). And as showing the historical 
development of this opposition, Whitmer says further: 

Early in the spring of 1833, at Independence, Missouri, the 
revelations were printed in the Book of Commandments. Many 
of these books were finished and distributed among the members 
of the church, and through some of the unwise brethren the 



1 " Address to Believers," p. 54. 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 241 

world got hold of some of them. From that time forth the ill 
feeling toward us began to increase, and in the summer of 1833 
the mob came upon us and tore down the printing-press and 
drove the church out of Jackson County. 1 

We are not, therefore, surprised that when the Saints 
at Kirtland heard of the opposition to the Saints in Mis- 
souri, and that the "enemies" in that land were not only 
stoutly resisting an ouster from the Saints, but instead 
were able to overcome the Mormons, that the Lord 
should be prompt in giving a revelation for the temple to 
be built in Kirtland, Ohio (D. & C. 91). Then, that the 
Lord should hasten to assure the brethren everywhere 
that what was happening in Missouri was a chastisement 
to prepare the way for their deliverance," for whom I 
love, I also chasten," was in the very nature of things to 
be expected. What he now wanted to do was : 

To prepare mine apostles to prune my vineyard for the last 
time. . . . Verily I say unto you, I gave you a commandment 
that you should build an house, in the which house I design to 
endow those whom I have chosen with power from on high, 
for this is the promise of the Father unto you ; therefore I com- 
manded you to tarry even as mine apostles in Jerusalem. . . . 
Let the higher part (the upstairs) of the inner court be dedi- 
cated unto me for the school of mine apostles, saith son Ahman ; 
or, in other words, Alphus ; or, in other words, Omegus ; even 
Jesus Christ your Lord. Amen. 2 

The die is now cast, and the temple is to be built in 
Kirtland instead of in Zion. Real estate now increases 
in value at this place, and through the selling of lots 
partial relief is secured from the financial stringency that 
the Saints must have felt in coming face to face with 
such a gigantic enterprise. Here properly belong the 
different financial schemes that were carried out by the 



Hbid, p. 55. 
2 D. & C, xcii. 



242 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Saints during their subsequent stay in Kirtland. And it 
was the money matters that finally led Joseph and Sidney 
to "skip the country" and go to Missouri in 1838. 

By July 23, 1833, the temple work had progressed 
sufficiently to have the ceremonies incident to the laying 
of the corner-stone, and was dedicated finally almost three 
years later, March 27, 1836. Those three years tested 
that indomitable pluck and perseverance which they later 
exhibited in their movements attendant upon the break- 
up at Nauvoo, and, later still, that they showed in their 
settlement in Utah. We do not pause to recount their 
financial cares and worries and distresses during the 
temple building, for the reason that it has been admirably 
done by other writers (as, e. g., Linn's "Story of the 
Mormons," pp. 142-160). 

We retrace our steps at this point long enough to call 
attention to what the Lord said concerning Zion (Inde- 
pendence, Mo.) at Perrysburgh, N. Y., while Joseph and 
Sidney were on their trip in the East. Zion had this 
promise :* 

Zion shall be redeemed, although she is chastened for a 
season (the Saints had been driven out about three months 
before this). ... I will not utterly .cast them off; and in the 
day of wrath I will remember mercy : I have sworn, and a 
decree hath gone forth by a former commandment which I gave 
unto you, that / will let fall the sword of mine indignation (not 
upon, but) in behalf of my people; and even as I said it shall 
come to pass. . . . They that have been scattered shall be 
gathered; and all they that have mourned shall be comforted; 
and all they who have given their lives for my name shall be 
crowned. Therefore let your hearts be comforted concerning 
Zion (Independence, Missouri), for all flesh is in my hands. 
Zion shall not be moved out of her place, notwithstanding her 
children are scattered; they that remain and are pure in heart 



l D. & C, xcviii. 4. 



DOCTRINE AND COVEN ANTS— CONTINUED 243 

shall return and come to their inheritances; they and their chil- 
dren with songs of everlasting joy, to build up the waste-places 
in Zion (Independence, Missouri). 

The only part of this prophecy that has come true 
is that Independence, Mo., has not been moved; it is 
still on the map. Zion has not been redeemed, the sword 
has not fallen in behalf of the Latter-day Saints, they 
have not returned to their "inheritance," and neither 
"they" nor "their children" have returned to build up the 
waste-places in Zion, nor have they come with the songs 
of everlasting joy. 

In the light of these events, we are prepared to follow 
Joseph as he speaks in parable. Unwittingly, in this 
parable, he gives us the history of these trying times, 
and at the same time reveals the animus of the Saints in 
redeeming their "promised land." It shall be worth while 
to make copious extracts from this parable, and while 
doing so, by the aid of parentheses, comment on the 
same. 

And now I will show you a parable, that you may know my 
will concerning Zion (Independence, Missouri). A certain noble- 
man (a title her* employed to represent the Lord) had a spot of 
land (Jackson County, Missouri) very choice; and he said unto 
his servants (Oliver Cowdery, et al.), Go ye into my vineyard, 
even upon this very choice piece of land, and plant twelve olive- 
trees (the priesthood), and set watchmen (Saints) round about 
them, and build a tower (a temple) that one may overlook the 
land roundabout, to be a watchman upon the tower (temple) ; 
that mine olive-trees (the priesthood) may not be broken down, 
when the enemy (residents of Jackson County, Missouri) shall 
come to spoil and take unto themselves the fruit of my vineyard. 

Now, the servants (Cowdery, et al.) of the nobleman (the 
Lord, represented by Joseph Smith, Jr.) did as their Lord com- 
manded them, and planted olive-trees and built a hedge round- 
about it, and set watchmen, and began (just as the Saints did 
begin) to build a tower (temple). And while they were yet 



244 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

laying the foundation thereof, they began to say among them- 
selves, What need hath my Lord of this tower? . . . And while 
they were yet at variance (they were never at peace among 
themselves, but were after some "office"), they became very 
slothful (they failed to contribute), and they hearkened not to 
the words of their Lord (words spoken through Joseph Smith, 
Jr.), and the enemy (Gentiles of Jackson County,. Missouri) 
came by night (as it is known that they came) and broke down 
the hedge, and the servants (the Saints) of the nobleman arose 
and were affrighted, and fled, and the enemy destroyed their 
works (print-shop, for instance), and broke down the olive-trees 
(they have not priesthood from that time till now). 1 

When the "nobleman" learned of the state of affairs, 
he began to plan a course of action looking to Zion's 
redemption. The above parable was spoken in December, 
1833, five months after the Saints had been expelled 
from Jackson County, and about two months after the 
glowing promises made for Zion, as we noted above. 
The Lord is now ready to divulge his plan. It is very 
illuminating : 

And the lord of the vineyard (Joseph Smith speaking for 
the Lord) said unto one of his servants (Parley Pratt), Go 
and gather together the residue of my servants (the churches 
in the East), and take all the strength of my house which are 
my warriors, my young men and they that are of middle age 
also, among my servants who are the (fighting) strength of my 
house save those only whom I have appointed to tarry (the 
"apostles"). And go ye straightway unto the land of my vine- 
yard (Jackson County, Missouri), and redeem my vineyard, for 
it is mine; I have bought it with money (just as they had made 
their original purchase of their land). Therefore go ye straight- 
way unto my land; break down the walls of mine enemies, throw 
down their tower and scatter their watchmen ; and inasmuch as 
they gather against you, avenge me of mine enemies ; that by 
and by I may come with the residue (the membership in the 
East) of mine house and possess the land. 2 



a D. & C, xcviii. 6. 
2 Ibid, xcviii. y. 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 245 

The "lord" then proceeds to liken the children of Zion 
to the woman in the parable of the unjust judge. Hence 
the instruction to the wronged Saints is : 

Let them importune at the feet of the judge; and if he heed 
them not, let them importune at the feet of the governor ; and if 
the governor heed them not, let them importune at the feet of 
the President; and if the President heed them not, then will the 
Lord arise and come forth out of his hiding-place and in his 
fury vex the nation. 1 

So speedily did they hope for deliverance of some 
kind that Sidney Gilbert was forbidden to sell the store- 
house, for it was the Lord's will that his people should 
hold claim to their land, though they were not permitted 
to dwell upon it. They had his promise that they should 
build, and that another would not inherit it ; they should 
plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. Whatever 
may have been the Lord's intention in the matter, it is 
sure that this prophecy failed in every essential particu- 
lar. It is true that the phrase "vex the nation" has been 
construed to mean the civil war that was carried on in 
1861-65, but the connection is so indirect and remote 
as to make the claim for it of little value. And the claim 
of the Saints, as they point to their persecutions, is that 
they have not yet recovered their lost estate, and every 
such claim but renders the more certain that this proph- 
ecy failed of fulfillment. 

It took some little time to get this military machinery 
in running order, hence it was not until February of 1834 
that the Lord communicated with his people as to how 
they should act in the redemption and restoration of 
Zion. Assurance, however, is doubly sure, for the Lord 
says :* 



1 Ibid, xcviii. 12. 

2 D. & C, Sec. c. 3-6. 



246 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Verily I say unto you, that I have decreed a decree, which 
my people shall realize, inasmuch as they hearken from this very 
hour unto the counsel which I, the Lord their God, shall give 
unto them. Behold, they shall, for I have decreed it, begin to> 
prevail against mine enemies from this very hour, and by heark- 
ening to observe all the words which I, the Lord their God, shall 
speak unto them, they shall never cease to prevail until the 
kingdoms of this world are subdued under my feet. . . . Behold, 
I say unto you, the redemption of Zion (Independence, Mis- 
souri) must needs come with power. Therefore I will raise up 
to my people a man who shall lead them like as Moses led the 
children of Israel. 

. . . Verily I say unto you, that my servant Baurak Ale 
(Joseph Smith, Jr.) is the man. . . . Therefore let my servant 
Baurak Ale (Joseph Smith, Jr.) say unto the strength of my 
house, . . . Gather yourselves together unto the land of Zion. 
... It is my will that my servant Sidney Rigdon shall lift up 
his voice in the congregations in the eastern countries, in pre- 
paring my churches to keep my commandments which I have 
given them concerning the restoration and redemption of Zion 
(Independence, Missouri). It is my will that Parley Pratt and 
my servant Lyman Wight should not return to the land of 
their brethren until they have obtained companies to go up into 
the land of Zion by tens, or by twenties, or by fifties, or by an 
hundred, until they have obtained a number of five hundred of 
the strength of my house. Behold, this is my will ; ask, and ye 
shall receive, but men do not always do my will ; therefore if 
you can not obtain the five hundred . . . seek diligently that 
peradventure you may obtain one hundred. Pray earnestly that 
peradventure my servant Baurak Ale (Joseph Smith, Jr.) may 
go with you and preside in the midst of my people, and organize 
my people upon the consecrated land. 

The above conditions briefly were that Baurak Ale 
should be with the company; that they get, if possible, 
five hundred men, and not less than one hundred, and 
then would the Lord deliver Zion with power. Let us 
see if these conditions were fulfilled, and then note 
whether there was the fulfillment of the promised result. 
As quoted in Smith's history, Parley Pratt has this to 



DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS— CONTINUED 247- 

say respecting the preparations for this military ex- 
pedition : 

It was now the first of May, 1834, and our mission had 
resulted in assembling about two hundred men (one hundred 
more than the Lord's required minimum) at Kirtland, Ohio, 
with teams, baggage, provisions, arms, etc., for a march of more 
than a thousand miles, to carry some supplies to the afflicted and 
persecuted Saints in Missouri, and to reinforce and strengthen 
them. . . . This little army was led by President Joseph Smith 
("Moses," "nobleman," "Baurak Ale") in person. It commenced 
its march about the first of May. 

So we can see that the "Lord had decreed a decree," 
his servants had met every condition, and all that was 
lacking now was the fulfillment of the Lord's word, 
which, strange to relate, never "came to pass." The 
Saints never were guilty of a more pretentious under- 
taking that ended in a more ridiculous failure. 

During the progress of the westward march, the 
Saints who were resident in "the land of Zion" impor- 
tuned "at the feet of the Governor," but he refused the 
military aid. The Saints were left to fight their battle 
alone. And not alone that, but as Joseph (Baurak Ale) 
neared the place where he had supposed that a show of 
force would alone give them possession of the land, he 
found an armed foe consisting of volunteers from Ray, 
Clay and Jackson Counties, Mo. In the evening, just 
before the time of the proposed battle, there came 
up a hailstorm, which prevented the Saints from utterly 
putting to rout this intrepid foe that assayed to stop their 
march. With this temporary cessation of hostilities, 
night was now upon them, opportunity was given the 
army to communicate with headquarters, and the Lord, 
considering the size of the opposing forces compared 
with his diminutive cohorts, thought it best that Baurak 
Ale and his warriors should pause until they had learned 



248 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

liis will concerning the redemption of his afflicted people. 

This is what is known as the Fishing River revelation 

and was received June 22, 1834. The Lord thought that 

If it were not for the transgression of my people, speaking 
■concerning the church, they might have been redeemed now ; . . . 
I speak not concerning those who are appointed to lead the 
people, who are the first elders of my church, for they are not 
all under this condemnation ; but I speak concerning my churches 
abroad. It is expedient in me that my elders should wait a little 
season for the redemption of Zion, for behold I do not require 
at their hands to fight the battles of Zion. . . . Talk not judg- 
ment, neither boast of faith, nor mighty works ; but carefully 
gather together as much in one region as can be consistently 
done with the feelings of the people ; and, behold, I will give you 
grace and favor in their eyes, that you may rest in peace and 
safety. . . . And I will soften their hearts as I did the heart of 
Pharaoh, from time to time, until my servants, Baurak Ale 
(Joseph Smith, Jr.) and Baneemy (Sidney Rigdon), whom I 
have appointed, shall have time to gather up the strength of 
my house. . . . 

But, firstly, let my army become very great, and let it be 
sanctified before me, that it may become as fair as the sun and 
dear as the moon, and that her banners may be terrible unto all 
nations. ... It is expedient in me that the first elders of my 
-church should first receive their endowment from on high in 
my house, which I have commanded to be built in my name in 
the land of Kirtland. 

In a single night do we mark the transformation of 
Baurak Ale from a warrior bold to a messenger of peace. 
Equipped for war twice in excess of the amount the Lord 
wanted, and yet in the first fair show that he had for a 
fight he begs off, hoping to gain by deception and stealth 
what he had purposed to take by force. It was not the 
Lord's will that he should fight, anyway, and, more than 
that, he antedated "Marks the Lawyer" by acknowledg- 
ing that he could not be spared, for the simple reason 
that the Lord wanted to endow him. And more, in a 



DOCTRINE AND COVEN ANTS— CONTINUED 249 

pusillanimous manner he lays the blame on the church, 
not the first elders ; he is politic enough to cultivate their 
good graces, while they were so glad to get out of the 
fight that they will accept any excuse. If the Lord had 
anything to do with the whole damnable institution, it is 
a pity that he did not strike dead this arch-blasphemer of 
the nineteenth century. Baurak Ale is a fraud ! 

We are not quite done with this incident. They had 
been told to hold up the ensign of peace, and thus would 
they find favor in the eyes of the people. They certainly 
never got it in Missouri. Baurak Ale and Baneemy were 
going East to recruit an army that should be as "fair as 
the sun and as clear as the moon," but when Missouri 
heard of them the next time they were within her borders 
as fugitives for the law of Ohio. They had to get their 
"endowment" first, then would they return with "power" 
in all things pertaining unto Zion. But the Lord retrieved 
no losses by the new revelations given to excuse the fail- 
ure of the first. The fact is, the last "fizzled out" worse 
even than the first. 

When the Lord counseled them on the night follow- 
ing the hailstorm to give up the battle, he told them that 
he would be with them to the end, but in two days the 
camp had become stricken with cholera. Joseph was 
astute enough to announce that the Lord had decreed 
that these men should die like sheep with the rot. Four- 
teen out of the sixty-eight afflicted died. In one instance 
Joseph rebuked the disease and got it himself. That was 
healing — with a vengeance. Later they discovered that 
when any of their fellows was afflicted he appeared to 
get relief by dipping himself in a near-by stream. This 
treatment stopped the vomiting and cramping, and in 
every case "it proved highly beneficial and effectual 
where it was taken in season." It was thus demonstrated 



^50 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

that Adam's "ale" was more powerful to the staying of 
the progress and ravages of the disease than was "Bau- 
rak Ale." One very naturally would think that by this 
time, unless he himself was a party to the fraud, none 
should be so obtuse as to fail to see that the prophet was 
holding out a delusive hope that Zion should ever be 
redeemed, in the sense in which it was construed in those 
terrible years. 

"My elders"' went back to Kirtland and received 
their "endowment." Tullidge blasphemously asserts that 
Joseph Smith was administered to by Moses. Elias, 
Elijah and Christ, but with all these superior endow- 
ments he never came back to find complete favor with 
his own people or with an army of any kind to put to 
rout the enemy in Zion. Instead, all events from this 
time forth tended to the ultimate expulsion of the Saints, 
not alone from those two or three counties into which 
they had been scattered, but from the State. In fact, it 
was Smith's appearance there that started the agitation 
anew. He had at this time the most serious difficulties 
with his own important men. Cowdery, Phelps, the two 
Whitmers, Hyde and Marsh were among the number 
who either were expelled or voluntarily withdrew. His 
reputation as a prophet never from this time gained in 
power. And here we leave him with the stamp of fraud 
upon his unholy brow. 

Right here the question of continuous revelation 
might be dropped, except that the history of Christian 
doctrine throws some light upon the subject. It was not 
a new discovery of Smith's, but was as emphatically 
declared in the early history of the church as it was by 
him. In the year 156 A. D., Montanus pushed forth this 
doctrine of continuous revelation, and was later sup- 



DOCTRINE AND COVEN ANTS— CONTINUED 251 

ported by Tertullian. These men claimed a prophetic 
"calling," in the very same sense as Agabus, Silas, Judas, 
the daughters of Philip and Hermas at Rome. It was 
here that the distinction was first sharply drawn between 
the "clergy" and "laity." There followed a revival of 
apocalyptic hopes, and a special community was organ- 
ized to await the speedy coming of the Lord. This led 
to the strengthening of the "episcopate," and ultimately 
became an established order of the church. Its chief 
modification was due to the .work of Tertullian, holding 
that the "church" has authority to make the distinction 
between the two classes in the church. This is the view 
essentially that was accepted by the Roman Church, and 
that view largely prevails to this day. 

The doctrine was based upon the then accepted exege- 
sis of John 16: 12-14, which reads as follows: "I have 
yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he 
shall guide you into all truth : for he shall not speak from 
himself, but what things soever he shall hear, these shall 
he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that 
are to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall take of 
mine and shall declare it unto you." A proper observ- 
ance of the fact that these "many things" which Jesus 
had to say, and did not say, referred to the changes 
which were to take place in the Jewish system, the aboli- 
tion of sacrifices and of the priesthood, together with the 
establishment of the Christian system, the details of 
which were made plain to the minds of the apostles by 
the Holy Spirit after the impressive scenes of the cruci- 
fixion, resurrection and ascension, would have preserved 
these men from concluding that these words or these 
promises referred to others than the apostles in whom 
they actually received their fulfillment. It is based upon 



252 MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

the assumption that what the church needs a new 
revelation, whereas the facts are that she only needs the 
application of the truths already given. What we need 
is heralds to proclaim it, and not prophets to add to it. 
We are not set to the invention of a new gospel, nor yet 
to the supplementing of an old one, but to the proclama- 
tion of the one that was "once for all delivered to the 
saints." Then, as now, was there one imperative duty, 
"Preach the word." 

This word is not amiss. The above note enables us 
to place at their proper value the many quotations the 
Saints make from the writings of Tertullian. They find 
in him a kindred spirit. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A PROPHET? 253 



CHAPTER XIX. 
Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Prophet? 

There is but little use to spar for position on this 
question ; Joseph Smith, Jr., was either a prophet of God, 
as he claimed, and as has been claimed for him, or he 
was not. For the sake of getting at the question, we 
might even concede all that the Saints claim, that in 
these latter days would God make use of prophecy, reve- 
lations, visions, dreams and angelic ministrations ; we 
might even acknowledge that it is neither impossible nor 
improbable that God should choose Joseph Smith to this 
office and make of him the most distinguished of all his 
earthly messengers ; we might even say that his sins 
count for nothing against his claims as a prophet, for 
Noah got drunk, Abraham and Jacob practiced polyg- 
amy, Moses slew an Egyptian, Samuel hewed Agag to 
pieces, David committed adultery, and Peter denied 
Christ: and in making these concessions we would be 
but following in the trail of the Mormons, for they say 
all these things, but the proposition that Joseph Smith, 
Jr., was a prophet of God would still be unproved. 

Our course in this chapter is to be determined by 
that proof that is offered, and for the reason that he said 
in beginning an article, "We now propose to consider the 
direct question, Was Joseph Smith a prophet of God?" 1 
we shall follow W. W. Blair, in his little volume entitled 
"Joseph the Seer." In that volume he says : 

The strongest external evidence that can be had — evidence 
that should satisfy every one — is the agreement between the pre- 

*P. 178 



254 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

dictions of these men and the subsequent facts of history. They 
predict with a "thus saith the Lord" that certain events will 
transpire — events which human sagacity could not foresee — and 
history, the faithful chronicler of events as they occur, testifies 
that the events did transpire. 

We have no disposition to question this very accurate 
and satisfactory declaration, and find ourselves in hearty 
accord with this defender of the prophet to make an 
investigation along the lines he has indicated. 

Our author, whom we are to follow, says that as early 
as 1823, while Joseph was yet a boy seventeen years of 
age, there came to him the consciousness that he would 
have a marvelous and wonderful career. This we may 
safely grant, but in doing so would also suggest that the 
consciousness as to what he was one day to be is no proof 
that this is what he one day became. What we are anx- 
ious for is to mark this man as he towers head and 
shoulders above his fellows in celestial fame, and speaks 
in heaven's accents, that we may discover the "exact 
agreement" between his words and "the subsequent facts 
of history." Should we discover an agreement between 
the "faithful chronicler" and the words of the prophet, 
we shall be free to acknowledge it. 

"In May, 1829, he predicted," says Blair, "that the 
church he was about to found and organize would be- 
come a great and marvelous work among the children of 
men (D. & C, xi. i)." 1 Then our author blandly says: 
"Such is its history, although it has but fairly begun 
its work." There we have the prophecy and we have 
what the "faithful chronicler" says about it. This may 
then be set down as proof number one. It depends on 
what satisfies the term "marvelous." 



1 The quotations from Blair in this chapter are all from his discussion 
of the prophetship of Smith following, p. 178. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A PROPHET? 255 

By turning to that revelation there is something said 
about "a great and marvelous work is about to come 
forth," but there is not one word said that it means the 
church that Joseph Smith was about to organize and 
found. In fact, "organize" and "found" are two words, 
not contained in the revelation at all. No reference is 
made about the church, and, for all that any one knows, 
it could just as well have meant the Book of Mormon 
or anything else the Saints might choose. This is not 
a quibble, for when a man starts out to prove the "exact 
agreement between the prediction on the one hand, and 
the fact of history on the other," he should do so by 
using the terms describing the things which he seeks to 
compare. This settles "number one." 

Our author continues : 

In March of the same year he predicted the coming of the 
cholera "scourge," and that it would continue its ravages among 
the nations from time to time till the earth became "empty." 
The first case of cholera occurred in western Europe in 1831, 
in Great Britain in 1832, and in North America in the summer 
of the same year. The most eminent physicians called it a dread- 
ful scourge, and state that its essential character and true origin 
are yet entirely unknown. 

The reference that he gives is D. & C, iv. 3. The 
particular part of that section to which he refers reads 
as follows : 

And you must wait yet a little while, for ye are not yet 
ordained ; and their testimony shall also go forth unto the con- 
demnation of this generation, if they harden not their hearts 
against them; for a desolating scourge shall go forth among the 
inhabitants of the earth, and shall continue to be poured out, 
if they repent not, until the earth is empty. 

We have taken the pains to give this much of the 
revelation in order to show that we have not misunder- 



256 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

stood' Blair in the use to which he puts it. Joseph, in 
March of 1829, so it is alleged, prophesied a "desolating 
scourge," and this came in. the next few years. This, 
then, is proof number two. 

It seems almost cruel to crush to the ground this idol, 
and yet that is all that we see to do. The edition of the 
Book of Doctrine and Covenants from which I have 
verified this author's reference was printed in 1864. An 
earlier one I do not happen to have, but in its stead I 
have a copy of ''The Book of Commandments, for the 
government of the church of Christ, organized according 
to the law on the 6th day of April, 1830," and published 
by W. W. Phelps & Co. in the year 1833, one year after 
the "desolating scourge," and the phrase "desolating 
scourge" is not in that revelation at all, from one end to 
the other. Knowing that the Book of Doctrine and Cove- 
nants took its shape in the year 1835, three years after 
the appearance of the "desolating scourge," it was not a 
difficult matter for the prophet to enhance his reputation 
as a prophet by prophesying something which history, 
"that faithful chronicler," had already declared had 
"come to pass." 

This is that famous section which we know was "doc- 
tored" to make way for Joseph's larger pretensions, 1 
for, having been told in the first instance that he should 
"pretend to no other gift," he very adroitly manipulated 
the "revised version" to read "until my purpose is ful- 
filled in this." And common sense would argue that if 
he were capable of changing the revelation of heaven to 
mean something entirely different from what it originally 
said, it would not be difficult to vindicate his "marvelous 
and wonderful mission" as a prophet by the same means, 



l See ante, p. 207. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A PROPHET? 257 

especially as he was so sure to have at least one fulfill- 
ment to his many predictions. This is answer number 
two. 

We have no serious objection to proof number three. 
Mr. Blair says that Joseph predicted that "the weak and 
simple" would proclaim the fullness of the gospel "unto 
the ends of the world and before kings and rulers," and 
an unlettered and inexperienced ministry has been fulfill- 
ing this since 1830. It could not well have been any 
other kind of a ministry. 

Following this, Mr. Blair cites some "prophecies" as 
to "wars and rumors of wars," "earthquakes" and vari- 
ous other natural disturbances, and upon them predicates 
the prophetship of Joseph, and says of them generally 
this : "Many items in the foregoing prophecies have been 
fulfilled, or are in the process of fulfillment, while some 
remain to be fulfilled at no distant day." The Galveston 
horror and the San Francisco disaster may now be added 
to the catalogue of calamities and include them. Why 
not? They are just as much proof as other incidents 
which he cites. The fact is that so general are these 
"predictions" that any century since Christ would have 
fulfilled them just as specifically as do the items selected 
by Blair. Surely he does not mean it for proof. 

The one "prophecy" upon which the Saints place 
greatest reliance is that one in which Joseph predicted 
the war of the rebellion, and said definitely: 

Verily, thus saith the Lord, concerning the wars that will 
shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Caro- 
lina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of 
many souls. The days will come that war will be poured out 
upon all nations, beginning at that place, for, behold, the South- 
ern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the 
Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of 
Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other 



258 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

nations in order to defend themselves against other nations; and 
thus shall war be poured out upon all nations. And it shall 
come to pass that slaves shall rise up against their masters, who 
shall be marshaled and disciplined for war. And it shall come 
to pass also, that the remnants who are left of the land shall 
marshal themselves, and become exceeding angry, and shall vex 
the Gentiles with a sore vexation ; and thus with the sword, 
and by bloodshed, the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn. . . , 
Until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all na- 
tions, that the cry of the Saints, and the blood of the Saints, 
shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, 
from the earth to be avenged of their enemies. Wherefore 
stand ye in the holy places, and be not moved, until the day of 
the Lord come : for, behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. 
Amen. 

Blair claims for this prophecy a date as early as i85i y 
when it was published in "The Pearl of Great Price" in 
Liverpool, England. He says also that John Hyde used 
it in a work published in 1857, citing the events in it to 
show that Joseph was a false prophet. Blair then speci- 
fies the particulars in which the prophecy was fulfilled. 
With this prophecy the author we are following closes 
his case until he comes to the question of the marvelous 
work that was done by his prophet in the founding of the 
church. Of the revelation itself there is claimed a date 
as early as Christmas, 1832. 

We now have two questions to ask. First, why was 
not this revelation published in 1833 in the Book of Com- 
mandments ? and, second, was there any occasion for this 
revelation to have been spoken in the precise form that 
was given it in 1832? Taking these in reverse order, we 
glean the following: 

The Presidential election of 1832 was conducted in 
the midst of an excitement, and in that election South: 
Carolina cast her eleven votes for candidates of her 
own. Already opposed to a high tariff, she was further 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A PROPHET? 259 

incensed by the increase of tariff in 1832. South Caro- 
lina, believing in the doctrine of State sovereignty, felt 
that she could secede or stay in the Union as she saw 
fit. She loved the Union, but she also believed in her 
own sovereignty, hence called a convention late in 1832 
to declare the tariff law null and void. The Piesident, 
although opposed to the tariff law, had sworn to uphold 
it and intended to enforce the law at all hazards. South 
Carolina then "suspended" her nullification act, until 
after the adjournment of Congress. In 1833 there was 
enacted a "compromise tariff," under which, until 1842, 
duties should be gradually diminished. This afforded 
the occasion for Smith to make his prophecy that the 
war should begin in South Carolina. And this answers 
the other question concerning the non-publication of the 
revelation in 1833 or in 1835 ; the storm-cloud had passed 
away, and Smith was afraid to risk his prophetship on 
the revelation. He meant that war should begin in 
1832, or near that time, not being able to see how South 
Carolina could back down from her position, especially 
when there was a President as determined as was that 
State. Instead, then, of it being a prophecy of the rebel- 
lion, it was a prophecy of war right then. 

Joseph, in the meanwhile, had died, and the revelation 
remained in custody until 1850, when the country was 
again astir over the compromise. South Carolina was 
still the hotbed of opposition to abolition, and the Mor- 
mon leaders could venture to have published in a provin- 
cial and obscure paper the "revelation" of their prophet, 
in the hope that it might be fulfilled. Its genuineness 
none can vouch for, or that it is the same as when it 
left the prophet's hands. It might have undergone many 
modifications. The Josephites doubt the genuineness of 
the revelation on polygamy because of the lapse of time 



260 MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

between its being issued and when it was publicly an- 
nounced. How is it that they can strain at the gnat and 
swallow the camel? Assuming that it is genuine, we 
have accounted for it having been spoken in the first 
place, and have furthermore shown why it was not 
printed ; it had signally failed as it ivas originally given 
and originally intended. That Joseph Smith believed that 
the North and South should engage in war at once is 
shown by a letter which was written to Mr. R. N. E. 
Seaton, of Rochester, N. Y., a copy of which is in 
Smith's history. In that Smith said: "I am prepared to 
say, by the authority of Jesus Christ, that not many years 
shall pass away before the United States shall present 
such a scene of bloodshed as has not a parallel in the 
history of our nation. . . . Repent ye, and embrace the 
everlasting covenant, and flee to Zion before the over- 
flowing scourge [does "scourge" mean cholera?] over- 
takes you, for these are now living upon the earth whose 
eyes shall not be closed in death until they see all these 
things, which I have spoken, fulfilled." And we say, 
again, that what the prophet so confidently expected did 
not come to pass. The people who went to Smith's Zion 
stayed only a little more than a year, and they have not 
gone back yet. 

Taking the prophecy as descriptive of the Civil War, 
it did, as a matter of fact, begin in South Carolina, but 
it required neither a prophet nor a son of a prophet to 
forecast such a contingency. That the South should be 
arrayed against the North was inevitable from the com- 
munity of interests. That the South should solicit aid 
from England was in the nature of things to be expected, 
for the South furnished the raw material for English 
mills. But that war was poured out on all nations; that 
the Saints should stand in holy places and not be moved; 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A PROPHET? 261 

that God should make a full end of all nations; that 
Great Britain should call upon other nations to defend 
her; that slaves should rise up against their masters — 
have neither circumstantially nor particularly come about. 
As to the word "remnants," no one knows what that 
means ; but, allowing that it means "the Lamanites," the 
Indians, there was no change in Indian habits and meth- 
ods of warfare. 

It is possibly true that some man could venture the 
guess, and so far as we can now see that such a con- 
dition might come about, that the present agitation of 
the question of the sale and manufacture of intoxicating 
liquors will result in the destruction of the licensed traffic, 
and, judging from the strides made in the South, say that 
the deliverance will come from that section of the coun- 
try. To be able to say it, however, is nothing more than 
what ordinary mental prescience should dictate. And in 
view of the strained conditions that had so long prevailed 
over the slavery question, it was an "irresistible conflict," 
that could be settled at last only by the power of the 
sword. 

Blair says that Joseph prophesied that if Brigham 
Young should get the lead of the church he would lead 
it to hell. It requires just a little stretching of the imagi- 
nation to think of a prophecy in the subjunctive mood. 
The "if" in that so-called "prophecy" forbids calling it a 
prophecy, and even "if" it were justly entitled to such 
recognition, we can find Mormon authority for believing 
that Brigham Young was the one power that enabled 
Mormonism to survive those perilous days following 
Nauvoo. 

"He also," says Blair, "by the Book of Mormon and 
direct revelation, proclaimed that soon after that book 
came forth the Lord would speedily prepare the way 



262 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

among the nations for the restoration of Israel and 
Judah to their lands," which has not been recorded by 
history, ''that faithful chronicler," unless by the same 
kind of Mormon proof it can be shown that the "un- 
speakable Turk" is of Israel or Judah, for the Turk still 
holds Canaan. 

"Joseph predicted," continues Blair, "that his seed, 
his posterity, would be called to fill his office, and plead 
the cause of injured innocence," and, using Joseph's 
words, says : "While water runs and grass grows ; while 
virtue is lovely and vice hateful, and while a stone points 
the sacred spot where a fragment of American liberty 
once was, I, or my posterity, will plead the cause of 
injured innocence until Missouri makes atonement for 
all her sins — or sinks disgraced, etc." This ct cetera in 
the "revelation" reads "degraded and damned to hell r 
'where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched'." 
The words "my posterity" are italicized by Blair as if 
he were conscious that "I" had not done his part to fulfill 
this dire prophecy, and he fails to show where "my pos- 
terity" has plead the cause of injured innocence on Mis- 
souri soil. Surely "my posterity" has done nothing from 
the year 1844 to i860, and there is no record where this 
son of the eloquent prophet has ever beseeched either the 
Federal Government or the State of Missouri in the in- 
terests of "this cause of injured innocence." Until this 
is done, or Missouri is "degraded and damned to hell," 
"the faithful chronicler" will not attest the glowing suc- 
cess of the would-be prophet. And yet this prophecy is 
as true as any that the "prophet" ever uttered. The 
silence of "my posterity," and the survival of Missouri as 
a State, which to date has escaped the terrible end threat- 
ened by this vindictive prophet, unite in pronouncing the 
prophecy an empty boast, and the prophet a fraud. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A PROPHET? 263, 

Earlier in our pages we called attention to the claim 
that is made in behalf of Joseph Smith that he is not a 
Gentile, but an Ephraimite. Blair says that Joseph was 
a citizen of a Gentile nation, and in that sense he was a 
Gentile, but that he was of Gentile lineage he denies. He 
says Paul was a Roman citizen, and yet a Jew by lineage. 
The Parthians, Medes and Elamites were undoubtedly 
Jews, although citizens of the nations whose names they 
bore. "So," says Blair, "Joseph Smith was a Gentile in. 
his citizenship, though an Israelite by lineage, as is 
claimed in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 2:2, 3), and 
provided for in Rom. 11:23-27; Jer. 16:16-19; 31 : 7, 
8 ; Ps. 80 : 1, 2 ; Deut. 33 : 17, with Rom. 3:1,2 and 9 : 4 r 
etc." 

The reader who will take the pains to examine these 
references will see that there is not the remotest refer- 
ence to a possible relationship that Joseph Smith might 
claim with the Jews, unless it is found in the Book of 
Mormon. It will be no trouble for the reader to discover 
the baselessness of the claim here made for this pseudo- 
prophet, in that averred proof taken from the Scriptures, 
so we shall content ourselves with an examination of the 
statement used in the Book of Mormon. 

A careful reading of that portion of the Book o£ 
Mormon, and by asking, "Who is speaking?" and, "To 
whom are the words addressed?" will show that it is 
Nephi, who was a descendant of Joseph who was carried 
into Egypt. He is the son of Lehi, the father of the 
Nephites and Lamanites. He was addressing a son, his 
last born, and, having once started to use the cognomen 
Joseph, he is reminded to speak of the Joseph who was 
down in Egypt. This Joseph in Egypt prophesied that 
the Lord would raise up a seer, "which shall be a choice 
seer." This seer should be blessed of the Lord, and 



264 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

"they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded." 
"And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be 
the name of his father." This is the man, "the choice 
seer," Joseph Smith, so the allegation reads. 

Now let us see. This prophet is to come through 
the lineage of Nephi. Joseph Smith, then, if he is that 
choice seer, is a descendant of Nephi. The Nephites 
were all killed, with the exception of the fellow who hid 
the plates, and the inference is that he died as soon as 
that task was performed. Be that as it may, the lineage 
of Nephi is not through the line of Ephraim, hence that 
prophecy, if Joseph Smith is an Ephraimite, does not 
refer to him ; for quoting once more the genealogical 
table given in the Book of Alma, "I am Amulek; I am 
the son of Giddonah, who was the son of Ishmael, who 
was a descendant of Aminadi. Aminadi was a descend- 
ant of Nephi, who was the son of Lehi . . . who was a 
descendant of Manasseh, who was the son of Joseph, 
who was sold into Egypt." That, so far as the Book of 
Mormon is concerned, settles once for all the question as 
to the lineage of Joseph Smith, Jr. If he had not become 
confused when he wrote that genealogical table, design- 
ing to have it refer to himself, he might have made use 
of the Book of Mormon for proof, but until there arises 
from the tribe of Manasseh a "choice seer," that predic- 
tion must remain unfulfilled to the very end of the chap- 
ter. Those who sought the destruction of Joseph Smith 
were not confounded ; instead, it was Smith who went 
down, and as Whitmer says r 1 

The choice seer will be faithful and do strictly according to 
the command of God; Brother Joseph broke the commands of 
God from the very beginning. 



"Address to Believers," p. 70. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A PROPHET? 265, 

The Mormons can find no fault with Whitmer's dec- 
laration that Joseph Smith fails to measure up to the 
requirements of that "choice seer," for the reason that 
the Lord (?) said practically the same thing (D. & C, 
Sec. 2) when he declared: "Behold, how often you have 
transgressed the commandments and laws of God, and 
have gone on in the persuasions of men." And Whit- 
mer's summary of the whole contention, coming as it 
does from one who was thoroughly conversant with all 
the shades of meaning that the Mormons were accus- 
tomed to attach to certain words and phrases, is unan- 
swerable. He says : 

I am satisfied that Brother Joseph was not that Choice Seer, 
for the following reasons : 

First : He is to come from the seed of Lehi, and Joseph 
Smith is not of that seed. 

Second : He is to convince the Lamanites (the Indians) in 
person; Joseph Smith did not convince them. 

Third : His tongue will not be loosed that he can speak much, 
and the Lord is to raise up a spokesman for him ; Joseph Smith's 
tongue was loosed, he being a good speaker. 

Fourth : Those who seek to destroy this Seer will be con- 
founded; this does not agree as being Brother Joseph, because 
he was destroyed. 

Fifth : The Choice Seer will be faithful and do strictly ac- 
cording to the command of God ; Brother Joseph broke the com- 
mands of God from the beginning. So we see that Brother 
Joseph was not this Choice Seer. 1 

If, now, at this point, the reader will cast a retrospec- 
tive glance over the pages of this volume, he will need- 
but little help to justly estimate this man Smith's pro- 
phetic claims. His early history in New York; his early 
dealings with his followers ; his machinations with his 
collaborators ; his incessant appeal to the "revelation" to» 

1 Whitmer's "Address to Believers," p. 70. 



266 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

free him from the various predicaments in which he 
found himself; his boastful, and what have been proved 
to be unwarranted, claims for himself, his "posterity" 
and his church — all these with one accord brand him as 
false in claim and lecherous m life, and unworthy of 
fellowship with any man or woman who lays claim to 
being decent. It is not malice nor venom that fastens 
these appellations upon him; it is the record of his life. 
Sorcerer, hoaxer, empiric, charlatan, impostor, mounte- 
bank, adulterer and poly^amist — these are the terrible 
words that tell the story of his life. Being himself base 
in life and purpose, his teachings were erroneous, hurtful 
and misleading, and over both his life and teachings 
there remains the slime of the serpent. 

I close this portion of my work by asking your judg- 
ment, dear reader, upon the following sentiment taken 
from the Doctrine and Covenants (Sec. 113) : 

Joseph Smith, the prophet and seer of the Lord, has done 
more (save Jesus only) for the salvation of men in this world 
than any other man that ever lived in it. . . . He lived great, 
and he died great, in the eyes of God and his people, and, like 
most of the Lord's anointed in ancient times, has sealed his 
mission and his works with his own blood — and so has his 
brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death 
they were not separated ! 

In the light of the foregoing pages, is that sentiment 
true? 




PRESIDENT JOSEPH SMITH, 
Son of the "Prophet." 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 267 



CHAPTER XX. 
Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Polygamist? 

To the question, "Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a polyga- 
mist?" a categorical answer can not be made off-hand. 
The leading factions of the Mormons, the Utah and Iowa 
contingents, take respectively the affirmative and nega- 
tive sides of this question. That each is acting disinter- 
estedly is quite too much to affirm, but that between the 
two, after hearing the evidence, the secular investigator 
is competent to reach a conclusion, is altogether within 
probability. 

Practicing as it has, and possibly as it does, the secret- 
wife system, the Brighamite faction naturally turns to 
its most authoritative sanction, viz. : the prophet of the 
church, Joseph Smith, Jr. While the Reorganized 
Church, having at its head a lineal descendant of the 
prophet, and appreciating the disaster wrought by this 
abominable doctrine, is doubtless interested in preserving 
the family's good name. The fairest statement which I 
have been able to discover relating to the legitimate posi- 
tion of the "Josephites" is that by D. H. Bays, at one 
time elder in the Reorganized Church, wherein he says : 

That Joseph Smith both taught and practiced polygamy was 
never doubted, so far as I am aware, till it was questioned by 
the people of the Reorganized Church, of which Joseph Smith, 
son of the prophet, is president. If his father was in no way 
responsible for the introduction of the practice into the church, 
it is eminently proper that a devoted son should do all in his 
power to repel the calumny and place the responsibility where it 
rightfully belongs. And, on the other hand, had Joseph Smith, 
either from his own volition or through the overweening influ- 



268 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

ence of wicked and designing men, been led into error and sin, 
it is but natural that the son should in an honorable way seek 
to parry the fatal blow, and let it fall as lightly as possible upon 
the heads of the innocent. 1 

- From that position there can be no reasonable dissent, 
and in the course of our investigation we shall allow this 
younger Smith to speak for himself, individually and 
federally. Indeed, we are desirous to learn the best that 
can be said in defense of the offending prophet, and 
whatever is the conclusion we reach ultimately, it must 
be predicated upon the investigation made by the son. 
The position is sometimes taken that the prophet, in this 
case, as in all others, should be judged in his official and 
not in his private capacity, thus allowing church papers 
to determine what is right and what is just. This privi- 
lege we are not disposed to grant, for the reason that a 
church paper is under consideration. For either that 
"revelation," which was said to have been given to 
Joseph on July 12, 1843, * s what is claimed for it by the 
Brighamites, and as was endorsed by them on Aug. 28, 
1852, or it is not. And in affirming it, as do the Brig- 
hamites, or in denying it, as do the Josephites, mere 
assertion is as valueless in the one instance as in the 
other. It is true that the Salt Lake party had an interest 
in making it appear that the revelation is genuine, and 
that Joseph Smith is its author, for by so doing were 
they able not alone to evade the law of decency required 
of all men, but to afford themselves protection from the 
terrors of State law. This fact alone explains the diffi- 
culty experienced by the Territory of Utah in securing 
admission into the United States, for the church was 
opposed to any amendment which declared polygamy to 
be a violation of the foundation principles of the United 



1 D. H. Bays, "The Doctrines and Dogmas of Mormonism," pp. 320, 322. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMISTf 269 

States. Since, then, this faction of the church was the 
sole representative of the original church for a long term 
of years, the presumption is created in its favor that what 
it alleges to have been handed down to it from Joseph 
Smith, Jr., actually so was handed down, and the burden 
of freeing the prophet from this charge of being inti- 
mately connected with the sin of polygamy, rests upon 
those who first affirm his innocence. 

Our question, then, is one of fact, to be determined 
as nearly in accordance with all known facts as can be 
shown by competent testimony. Of course it is not a 
new thing that Smith should be charged with immorality, 
or that the " Saints" should be reproached with wrong- 
doing. In their vernacular this is "persecution," and 
they rather boast in it being their distinctive badge. The 
church was barely five years old when it placed itself on 
record by telling the world its belief on the subject of 
marriage. The pronouncement ran as follows : "Inas- 
much as this church has been reproached with the crime 
of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe 
that one man should have one wife, and one woman but 
one husband, except in case of death, when either is at 
liberty to marry again." Incidentally this record shows 
that Dame Rumor has it that the Saints are guilty of 
polygamy at even that early date, but the non-polyga- 
mous Mormons hold it to be a declaration against polyg- 
amy. As judges of their own intention they are better 
qualified than are we to say just what they intended this 
to mean, but that was not what they said in the above 
declaration. As it stands, it is not a pronouncement 
against polygamy, although it is against polyandry. In 
the light of subsequent developments, it is shown to be 
an evasion, and was meant to be used for exhibition pur- 
poses only. 



270 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

For some unaccountable reason the idea prevails that 
among the Saints there was a law of marriage, to be used 
whenever there were contracting parties intending to 
consummate a legitimate marriage, but that for the 
secret-wife system a separate ritual was employed; but a 
closer investigation discloses the fact that there has never 
been more than the one, and that the Brighamites have 
never felt the need for any other than the regular church 
service. This fact helps us to weigh at its proper value 
the contention that the church had marriage laws and 
that they forbade polygamy. The only reason why there 
was any difference made in the marriage of a pair con- 
templating polygamous relations and a couple contract- 
ing legitimately was that the laws of the State could be 
evaded by making that part secret, but when the mar- 
riage was celebrated it was by the regular laws of the 
church. 

Mr. Linn, in his "Story of the Mormons," is guilty 
of an oversight, an unusual occurrence for that author, 
when he observes that "the Book of Mormon furnishes 
ample proof that the idea of plural marriages was as far 
from the thought of the real author of the doctrinal part 
of that book as it was from the minds of Rigdon's dis- 
ciples in Ohio at the time. The declarations on the 
subject in the Mormon Bible are so worded that they 
distinctly forbid any following of the example of Old 
Testament leaders like David and Solomon. In the Book 
of Jacob (2: 24-28) we find these commands: 

Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and con- 
cubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord; 
wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out 
of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might 
raise up a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. 

Wherefore, I, the Lord God, will not suffer that this people 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 271 

shall do like unto them of old. Wherefore, my brethren, hear 
me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not be 
any man among you have save it be the one wife ; and con- 
cubines he shall have none; for I, the Lord God, delighteth in 
the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination be- 
fore me, saith the Lord of hosts. 1 

The oversight is this: Mr. Linn did not read as far 
in this very chapter as would any well-informed Brig- 
hamite. The following verses of that same chapter show 
this proviso: 

For if I will, saith the Lord of hosts, raise up seed unto me, 
/ will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto 
these things. 

Now, the Brighamite asserts that God willed it, and 
when the revelation came for that purpose, it was not 
contradicted by anything that was said in the Book of 
Mormon. What kind of a book is this, anyway, that in 
the hands of the Josephite will yield the doctrine of 
monogamy, and in the hands of the Brighamite will be 
equally clear for polygamy? Further, granting that the 
Book of Mormon is divine, if God did not mean to make 
way for the "revelation" of polygamy when he inserted 
that proviso in the Book of Mormon, then what did he 
mean? It is true that he delights in the chastity of 
women, but what does he mean when he leaves himself 
open to "will otherwise" ? 

These observations show how utterly futile it is to 
try to settle this question by what purports to be official 
with the church. If we secure the facts at all, they must 
be found in a source extraneous to the official pro- 
nouncements of that body. As nearly as possible, we 
must appeal to the men who were conversant with the 
facts, for, as we stated above, we are to deal with a 



1 Linn's "Story of the Mormons," pp. 272, 273. 



272 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

question of fact. With this preliminary survey of the 
question, we are ready for our witnesses. 

Our first witness will be David Whitmer. He is in 
as good standing as any Mormon known to us. If the 
Mormons object to him on the ground of character, we 
reply that we would only be too glad to introduce better 
men,. but we can not find them among the Saints. It will 
be recalled that he was one of the original witnesses to 
the Book of Mormon. He had left the church, however, 
as early as 1838. But if there is any virtue in his 
" reaffirmation" of the "testimony," a production of his 
declining days, then is there some credence to be given 
his testimony on this question made at the same period of 
life. Our quotations will be taken from his "Address to 
Believers in the Book of Mormon." This pamphlet was 
not addressed to Gentiles, but to Mormons, ?nd was 
written from the Mormon standpoint. In that address 
he says : 

A few years ago I had doubts as to Brother Joseph's con- 
nection with the spiritual-wife doctrine, but I have recently seen 
Vo. I., No. 1, of the old Latter-day Saints' Herald, which has 
settled the matter in my own mind. 

So he is going to tell us how the question appeared 
to be to him, and he purposes to give the grounds for 
his belief. It is not with him a question of knowledge, 
for if it were that would settle the question once for all. 
Neither is the Josephite contention a matter of knowl- 
edge, and they have not treated it as such. They pretend 
to want testimony, and this is what Whitmer is disposed 
to give them. He wants to set himself right with them 
first of all, so he says : 

I now have as much evidence to believe that Brother Joseph 
received the revelation on polygamy, as I have to believe that 
such a man as George Washington ever lived. I never saw Gen- 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 273 

eral Washington, but from reliable testimony I believe that he 
did live. 

So it seems that he gives credence to historical mat- 
ters, and counts this as one of the questions that will 
yield to historical treatment: 

I have, he says, the evidence regarding the revelation, that 
is recorded in Vol. I., No. 1, Latter-day Saints' Herald; being 
evidence from your own side which you are bound to accept. It 
is the evidence of the leaders of the Reorganization in the begin- 
ning, some of whom were with Brother Joseph in Nauvoo up to 
the time of his death. These articles appeared in the first num- 
ber ever printed of the Saints' Herald. This number of the 
Herald is very scarce now; they seem to have been hid away and 
destroyed. . . . And I tell you that the efforts of the Reorgan- 
ized Church in this regard have not been acceptable to God. He 
does not want the truth covered up. . . . You should have 
acknowledged belief in the errors of Joseph Smith, and not tried 
to hide them where there is so much evidence that he did go into 
error and blindness. . . . The leaders of the Reorganized Church 
after a time began to suppress their opinions concerning this 
matter. They would answer the question when asked about it : 
"I do not know whether Joseph Smith received that revelation 
or not." This was truthful, but evasive, as it is not a matter 
of knowledge, except with a few. They charge it all to Brig- 
ham. 1 

For the sake of emphasis, I have taken the liberty to 
italicize some of the above sentences. From them we 
infer that Whitmer suspects the fairness of the Joseph- 
ites in dealing with the question. Indeed, he accuses 
them of suppressing their opinions in the matter, and of 
professing an agnosticism that is in nowise complimen- 
tary to their historical sense. They have managed, it 
appears, to get rid of that incriminating copy of the 
Saints' Herald. 

Having now told us where he was going to find his 



^'Address to Believers in Christ," pp. 38, 39. 



274 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

evidence, and how the Josephites have managed to deal 
with it, he then tells us what that evidence is : 

I quote from Vol. I., No. I, of the True Latter-day Saints' 
Herald, page 24, from an article by Isaac Sheen, who was a 
leader in establishing the Reorganization: "The Salt Lake apos- 
tles also excuse themselves by saying that Joseph Smith taught 
the spiritual-wife doctrine, but this excuse is as weak as is their 
excuse concerning kings and patriarchs. Joseph Smith repented 
of his connection with this doctrine, and said that it was of the 
devil. He caused the revelation on that subject to be burned, 
and when he voluntarily came to Nauvoo and resigned himself 
into the hands of his enemies, he said that he was going to 
Carthage to die. At that time he also said if it had not been 
for this accursed spiritual-wife doctrine, he would not have come 
to that. By his conduct he proved the sincerity of his repent- 
ance and of his profession as a prophet. If Abraham and Jacob 
by repentance can obtain salvation, so can Joseph Smith." 1 

By availing ourselves of the use of italics, we easily 
follow Whitmer's reasoning. He is quoting from a 
paper which has an opportunity to speak advisedly, espe- 
cially as the quotation made from that paper is from a 
man who, because of his leadership among the Reorgan- 
izes, is reputed to be an authority among them. This 
man, Isaac Sheen, says that Joseph had something of 
which to repent, and repented of his connection with the 
spiritual-wife doctrine. He caused that "revelation on 
that subject to be burned," and just before his death 
declared that his connection with that doctrine was work- 
ing his destruction. It was Sheen who said this of the 
prophet. And Whitmer concludes that, because of this, 
the Josephites could do nothing but accept the testimony 
offered by Sheen, or evade the issue entirely by lying. 

In his debate with Clark Braden, a debate held in 
Kirtland, Ohio, in February and March of 1884, E. L. 



1 Whitmer's "Address to Believers in Christ," p. 40. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMISTf 27$ 

Kelly, of the Reorganized Church, said in reference to 
this Whitmer accusation : 

Now, is it not singular that this evidence should be in our 
own paper and we not know it? If, as a people, we claim that 
Joseph Smith was not in polygamy, or, if he>was, we never had 
evidence of it, are we to be termed fanatical upon this, when 
the strongest evidence he says he can find is in our own church 
paper? It ought to strike any sensible man that if such a thing 
as he terms evidence is in our church paper, and at the same 
time, as a people, we do not believe that the charge of polygamy 
is true, that we must have some good reason for it. He would 
hardly charge the body with the ignorance, or lack of sufficient 
courage, to admit that Mr. Smith was guilty, if we had the 
proofs. Whether guilty or not, does not injure our faith; we 
say the charge is false because we are convinced of it. 1 

But the very charge that Mr. Kelly thought impos- 
sible of utterance against them as a people, is the charge 
that Mr. Whitmer prefers against them, when he says 
that they suppress the testimony and confess agnos- 
ticism. With all fairness to the Josephites, it must be 
admitted that they have attempted an explanation of the 
quotation reproduced from the True Latter-day Saints' 
Herald by Whitmer. Let us attend to the examination of 
the sufficiency, or insufficiency, of this explanation. In 
the debate above referred to, after having read the iden- 
tical statement quoted by Whitmer, which confirms the 
accuracy of Whitmer 's words, Mr. Kelly says: 

This is an argument of Sheen's ; he never pretended to have 
any knowledge of his own. He was arguing from the accepted 
statements of the Brighamites. Emma Smith had been charged 
with the burning of the revelation on polygamy, and that Joseph 
gave it to her to burn; and Elder Sheen argues from the prem- 
ises that if Joseph did this, he must have repented of polygamy. 
Then, he bases his argument that it was an accursed doctrine 



1 "Braden-Kelly Debate," p. 373. 



276 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

upon the statement made by Elder Marks, in the letter to which 
I have already referred. There is absolutely no more evidence 
in this than in the remarks of the lawyer after the witnesses 
have given their evidence. The letter of Elder Marks was one 
thing that he based his argument on, and the statement that 
Joseph gave the revelation to Emma to burn, and she burned it, 
was the other. You and I can argue and can draw our conclu- 
sions upon the statements as well and as truly as could Elder 
Sheen. But hold a moment. Elder Sheen had not all the state- 
ments or evidence to this time; when that came there was an- 
other tale altogether. Mrs. Emma Smith is the next witness. 
She says : "I never burned any revelation of my husband's, nor 
anything claiming to be such. I would not have thought of do- 
ing such a thing." Here it is. It has come down to this, as to 
whether we will believe Brigham Young on this point of the 
revelation or the Elect Lady. For my part, I believe the lady; 
Braden prefers to believe Brigham. 1 

By the process of reducing the question to its lowest 
terms, the choice, according to Kelly, is that of accepting 
either the statements made by Brigham Young or the 
statements made by Mrs. Smith; and it must be con- 
fessed that, if the issue is to be settled in that way, then 
the Josephites apparently have made good their conten- 
tion, for there appears less of the reprehensible in the 
Elect Lady than in her husband's successor. If, how- 
ever, before we are through with our study of the ques- 
tion, we discover evidence that Emma Smith did know 
something about the secret-wife system, it will do much 
to discredit her testimony when used to offset the con- 
clusions of Whitmer, Marks and Sheen. For the time 
being, we shall allow her to pass out of mind and give 
our attention to some fa<:ts preparatory to a later inter- 
view with her. 

Kelly says that this was an accepted statement of the 
Brighamites. As a matter of fact, it is that yet — with 

1 "Braden-Kelly Debate," p. 374. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 277 

the Brighamites. What Kelly means, then, is that it was 
an accepted statement of the Brighamites, but accepted 
then by the Josephites. This confirms D. H. Bay^' decla- 
ration, "That Joseph Smith taught and practiced polyg- 
amy was never doubted so far as I am aware, till it was 
questioned by the people of the Reorganized Church." 
And, according to Kelly, this correction of their former 
belief is based upon the denial subsequently made by 
Mrs. Emma Smith. But this touches only one point; 
namely, did she burn the revelation? The great ques- 
tion, Was Joseph Smith a polygamist? was not touched 
upon in that statement of his widow. And this is all 
that Kelly's rejoinder can be made to mean. There yet 
remains the possibility that Kelly is mistaken in his 
reasoning, and that his omnibus manner of disposing of 
Whitmer really does violence to the proposition that 
Whitmer is defending. 

Whitmer is insistent that Joseph was not entitled to 
his prophetic station, and among other arguments to 
show Joseph's claims unwarranted brings up the subject 
of polygamy. He makes use of Sheen and Marks as his 
witnesses, and, presumably, he knows what Sheen and 
Marks intended to say. Kelly takes these words and 
reads into them a meaning that they do not bear on the 
face of them. What Sheen was saying was this : The 
Brighamites had two faults : One, that they excused 
themselves in their sin by the example of kings and 
patriarchs, and the other, that they claimed to derive 
their authority from Joseph as the prophet of the church. 
He held to the insufficiency of both excuses. Conse- 
quently, as he learned from Marks, Joseph's repentance 
was twofold: First, that he gave forth this particular 
revelation, and, second, that he ever lay claim to being 
a prophet of God. And, as Smith told Marks, that when 



2 ;8 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

he was apprehended and on his way to Carthage, he was 
going there to die. Hence he went, not as a martyr, as 
the Saints almost universally hold now, but as a man 
who was borne to the earth beneath the weight of his 
double offense — first, as a man who had outraged social 
decency in his connivance with the spiritual-wife doc- 
trine, and, second, as one who had hypocritically claimed 
to be the mouthpiece of God. And the fact that he 
repented, which fact the testimony of Emma Smith does 
not controvert, shows that he had something of which to 
repent. This was the crime that called down the storm 
upon his unholy head, and the inference is that the sin 
of polygamy was the specific crime, and was the only 
one with which he was charged at that time, and for 
which, as he saw the great Avenger drawing nigh, he 
felt constrained to repent. 

That this is in keeping with Whitmer's use of the 
testimony given by Marks and Sheen, and that our 
conclusion here reached alone is in consonance with 
the purpose that prompted Whitmer to write his "Ad- 
dress to Believers," is confirmed when we note his 
summary : 

Here we have Sheen's testimony as follows : That Joseph 
Smith did have connection with this spiritual-wife doctrine ; that 
he repented of it just before his death, having come to the con- 
clusion that the revelation was not of God, but of the devil ; and 
he caused the revelation to be burned. Brother Sheen does not 
say how long Brother Joseph had connection with this doctrine, 
but of course we suppose from the time that the revelation was 
given, July 12, 1843, until the time of his repentance just before 
his death in June, 1844 ; at which time he concluded that the 
revelation was not of God, and caused it to be burned, volun- 
tarily giving himself up to his enemies, saying that he was going 
to Carthage to die. 1 

1 Whitmer's "Address to Believers in Christ," p. 40. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 279 

That one issue of the True Latter-day Saints' Herald 
must have been an interesting number. Not alone did 
Elder Sheen have space to discourse upon this "accepted 
statement of the Brighamites," accepted then by the 
Josephites, but denied strenuously by them now, but the 
editor of the paper (this possibly was Sheen) also used 
valuable space upon the same topic. He said: 

This adulterous spirit (polygamy) had captivated the hearts 
of the people, and they desired a license from God to lead away 
captive the fair daughters of his people, and in this state of mind 
they came to the prophet Joseph (not Brigham). Could the 
Lord do anything more or less than what Ezekiel had prophesied. 
( answer a prophet according to his iniquity) ? The Lord hath 
declared by Ezekiel what kind of an answer he would give them,, 
therefore he answered them according to the multitude of their 
idols (giving them an answer through Joseph — the revelation on, 
polygamy; and Joseph gave the revelation to them — the church). 
Paul had prophesied that for this cause would God send them a: 
strong delusion, that they should believe a lie ; that they all might 
be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in un- 
righteousness. Both the prophecies agree. In Ezekiel's prophecy 
the Lord also says : I will set my face against that man, and', 
will make him a sign and proverb, and will cut him off from the 
midst of my people, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. 
And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, 1, 
the Lord, have deceived the prophet (or allowed the prophet to 
be deceived because of iniquity — W.), and I will stretch out m> 
hand upon him and will destroy him from the midst of my 
people Israel. And they shall bear the punishment of their 
iniquity; the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the 
punishment of him that seeketh unto him; that the house of 
Israel may go astray no more from me, neither be polluted any 
more with all their transgressions ; but that they may be my 
people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord God." We have 
here the facts as they have transpired in relation to the subject* 
The death of the prophet is one fact that has been realised; 
although he abhorred and repented of this iniquity before his- 
death. 1 



1 Whitmer's "Address to Believers in Christ," pp. 40, 41. 



280 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

This is the testimony of the editor of the Herald. 
Should we adopt Kelly's tactics in disposing of this as 
he sought to dispose of the testimony of Sheen, we 
should say that "this is one of the accepted statements 
of the Brighamites. That the editor knew ' nothing 
about the facts himself, but after hearing what the Brig- 
hamites had to say as they slandered the prophet, he 
believed them, and argued from the premises that this 
was what the people wanted and the prophet complied 
with their wishes, but that he repented of it before his 
death.- But this, after all, is only the editor's opinion. 
We have just as much right to reason from the same 
premises as did he. What he said was nothing more 
than what a lawyer would say after a witness has testi- 
fied. Now, however, we have later testimony. Sister 
Emma has spoken, and we prefer to believe her, for she 
says that she did not burn the revelation." Did we use 
such argument, it would be as non sequitur in the one 
instance as in the other. 

It is the merest subterfuge on the part of the Joseph- 
ites to thus seek to ingeniously evade the issue. It has 
remained for later historians to place a halo of glory 
upon the infamous brow of this false prophet, but those 
who lived closest to him in point of time, as well as in 
intimacy of fellowship, say that this monster died by the 
visitation of the Lord. While they may be mistaken in 
the use to which they put the Scripture quoted by them, 
there is no gainsaying the fact that they were conscious 
•of certain evils that had wrought havoc in their church, 
and for which no one was so much to blame as was 
Joseph Smith. And, what is more to the point, it was 
their belief that, however nobly he had filled his office in 
his early years, when he died it was because the Lord 
cut him off from the midst of his people. From that 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A PO.LYGAMIST? 28r 

time forth the name of Joseph Smith should be a sign 
and proverb. God had sent him a strong delusion that 
he should believe a lie, so that for all time he should be 
numbered among the damned who love not the truth, but 
have pleasure in unrighteousness. Such as this the Brig- 
hamites never said. This is the "accepted statement" of 
the Josephites. We close this chapter with this query: 
Is that number of the Herald reliable? If so, then it 
was the belief of the leaders of the Reorganization that 
Joseph Smith was responsible for polygamy, however 
assiduously they endeavor to deny it now. 



282 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER XXL 

Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Polygamist? — Continued. 

As we have seen in the preceding chapter, what was 
written by Marks and Sheen was not "an accepted state- 
ment of the Brighamites," but testimony first-hand. But 
for fear that some matters of importance may pass by 
without our due consideration, and their relevancy to the 
question upon which issue is joined carelessly noted, we 
shall, even at the risk of repetition, present them to our 
readers again. We shall never know how much we are 
indebted to Whitmer for his help. Had it not been for 
his tract, we do not know how much or how little of this 
interesting narrative would have entirely escaped us. 
Now that it is with us, we are entitled to its use. Fol- 
lowing the quotations already made from that writer, 
we add the following : 

On page 22 in the same number of the Herald is an article 
of like testimony by Wm. Marks, who, as he states in his article, 
was presiding elder at Nauvoo in 1844 when Brother Joseph was 
killed, and was with Brother Joseph up to his death. His testi- 
mony is the same as that given in the foregoing articles. He 
states that Brother Joseph said to him before his death, concern- 
ing polygamy, as follows : "He (Joseph) said it would eventually 
prove the overthrow of the church, and that we would soon be 
obliged to leave the United States unless it could be speedily 
put down. He was satisfied that it was a cursed doctrine, and 
that there must be every exertion made to put it down." x 

At this point Whitmer's quotation closes, but in the 
Braden-Kelly debate Mr. Kelly makes use of all the fore- 

1 Whitmer's "Address to Believers in Christ," p. 41. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 283 

going material, and then supplements it with this further 
information : 

He said he (Joseph) would go before the congregation and 
proclaim against it, and I (Marks) must go into the High Coun- 
cil, and he would prefer charges against those in transgression, 
and I must sever them from the church, unless they made ample 
satisfaction. There was much more said, but this was the sub- 
stance. 1 

To this quotation, as thus amended and supple- 
mented, Mr. Kelly made the following rejoinder: 

(1) That somebody was doing something in the church which 
was not right — going into polygamy. 

(2) That it must be speedily put down. Well, does that 
sound as though he was going to dilly-dally about the matter? 

(3) That it was a cursed doctrine. Does that sound as 
though he had received a revelation endorsing it? He would 
have struck at the revelation instead of the doctrine. . . . 

(4) That he would go before the congregation and proclaim 
against it. Does that sound like it was his revelation then, or 
that he was guilty? 

(5) That Marks must go into the High Council and that 
Smith would prefer charges against those in transgression, and 
Marks must sever them from the church. 2 

To the above amendments it is barely possible that 
another can be made. The conversation spoken of by 
Marks was sought by Joseph. "He said that he had 
desired for a long time to talk with me on the subject of 
polygamy." This indicates that the subject was one 
upon which the prophet had for some time been reflect- 
ing. In the same letter Marks states that the church had 
become so corrupt that in a vision he was shown that the 
only way to cleanse and purify it was to organize it 
again. This is surely a bad state of affairs, and is doubt- 

^'Braden-Kelly Debate," p. 374. 
2 Ibid, p. 374. 



284 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

less the ground of the prophet's anxiety. Later in the 
letter, and following the other quotations, Marks says: 

The mob began to gather about Carthage a few days after, 
therefore nothing was done concerning it. After the prophet's 
death I made mention of the conversation to several, hoping and 
believing that it would have a good effect; but, to my great dis- 
appointment, it was soon rumored that Brother Marks was about 
to apostatize, and that all he had said about the conversation 
with the prophet was a tissue of lies. 

We can now see that Kelly was wrong when he 
sought to explain away Sheen's reasoning by saying it 
was all based on "the accepted statement of the Brig- 
hamites." Marks knew what he was talking about, and, 
according to him, so grave was the situation, just imme- 
diately before Joseph's death, that nothing but the most 
radical measures would answer. The people knew their 
prophet, and knew him well — so well, indeed, that when 
the prophet was dead, and Marks told them about the 
prophet's new attitude concerning polygamy, that they 
said it "was a tissue of lies." They could explain Marks* 
allegations only on the ground of apostasy, so well did 
they know the prophet's mind. And this demonstrates 
beyond a possibility of a doubt that when Joseph Smith 
went to Carthage to die, although that death was in- 
flicted upon him by a mob, he died, not as a martyr to a 
just cause, but as one who received his just deserts for 
the life of infamy and deception which he had lived. 
And we are determined to hold the Josephite to the 
utterances of his own periodical, that this man, in the 
eyes of those who knew him best, was the instigator of 
the sin of polygamy, and met his death because an out- 
raged justice required it. It has remained for his sons 
to challenge the correctness of these men who were pres- 
ent in those terrible days, but the testimony of Sheen, 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 285 

Marks and Whitmer stands, and they charge the sin to 
Joseph Smith, Jr. 

Over against the evidence just submitted is placed 
the testimony of the "Elect Lady," Mrs. Emma Smith. 
Her testimony is the foundation of Kelly's belief on the 
question. The reader is interested in knowing how she 
ever came to say anything about it. Understand, of 
course, that Marks did not die until 1872, in May of that 
year, I believe. This was almost twenty-eight years 
after Joseph Smith's death. Whatever was the testi- 
mony held by the Saints until then, not one word is of 
record where Marks ever exonerated the prophet of the 
charge contained in the first number of the Saints' Her- 
aid. And what appears strange is that the testimony of 
Emma Smith was not taken till after the death of Marks, 
the last of the eye-witnesses, and even that was not made 
public until after her death. It would seem that the 
younger generation was determined to wait till the last 
one was gone, and then boldly come forward and say: 
If Joseph Smith was a polygamist, prove it. As the case 
now stands, it is already proved, and that by their own 
publication ; if Smith is innocent, it is for the Josephite 
to show this to be the case. The younger Smith, with an 
avowed intention of discovering the worst, if there is any 
worst, was led to interview his mother just a few days 
before her death. This testimony we will now offer: 

Question: What about the revelation on polygamy or spir- 
itual wives? Did Joseph have anything like it? What of spir- 
itual wifery? 

Answer: There was no revelation on polygamy or spiritual 
wives. There were rumors of something of the sort, of which 
I asked my husband. He assured me that all there was to it 
was that in a chat about plural wives he had said, "W r ell, such 
a thing might be, if everybody agreed to it, and would behave 
as they should ; but they would not, and, besides, it was con- 



286 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

trary to the will of Heaven." No such thing as spiritual wifery 
or polygamy was taught, either publicly or privately, before my 
husband's death, that I have now or have ever had any knowl- 
edge. 

Question: Did he not have other wives than yourself? 

Answer: He had no other wife but me; nor did he, to my 
knowledge, ever have. 

Question: Did he hold marital relation with other women 
than yourself? 

Answer: He did not have improper relations with any woman 
that ever came to my knowledge. 

Question: Was there nothing about spiritual wives that you 
recollect? ■ 

Answer: At one time my husband came to me and asked .me 
if I had heard certain rumors about spiritual marriages, or any- 
thing of the kind, and assured me that if I had, that they were 
without foundation; that there was no such doctrine, and never 
should be, with his knowledge and consent. I know that he had 
no other wife, or wives, than myself, in any sense, spiritual or 
otherwise. 1 

This statement we set down as being the strongest 
that the Josephite has to offer, and Kelly reposes his 
faith in this solemn declaration. Quite naturally the 
question arises as to her opportunities for accurate 
knowledge upon the controverted topic, Was she in posi- 
tion to know what was doing both "publicly and pri- 
vately" ? This same Mrs. Smith, before she became Mrs. 
Bidamon, was on fairly good terms with Marks, he who 
said that he had had a conversation with Joseph, and 
together they had determined upon a plan to put this sin 
down. Marks' statement had been known for many 
years, and yet she never in a public manner sought to 
clear her husband of the imputation. She died in 1879, 
thirty-five years after the death of Smith, while all the 
time this had been a live topic in Mormondom. Kelly 



^ullidge's "Life of the Prophet," pp. 791, 792. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 287 

says that they did not have all the information at the 
time of the issue of the True Latter-day Saints' Herald, 
and really the question was not settled till Mrs. Smith 
settled it in 1879. Until this interview, presumably, 
Joseph III. had never engaged in conversation with his 
mother upon the subject. Up to this time all that they 
knew of the circumstances was contained in that "ac- 
cepted statement of the Brighamites." Now this woman 
testifies after a lapse of about thirty-five years, near the 
end of a protracted illness which ended in her death, 
after the death of the men who had actual information 
on the subject. Understand that during all this time this 
woman was within easy reach of the Reorganizers, for 
she did not go to Utah in the great "exodus" from 
Nauvoo. 

It would seem that it would have saved her chil- 
dren much annoyance had she been less tardy in vin- 
dicating the honor of their father. It is less difficult of 
belief that her years of training with the Reorganization 
had led her to say what they wanted her to say, and in 
time came to believe as they believed, until after a lapse 
of years such meditation would impress upon her mind 
an image of the past that would seem to her as real as 
though she were tracing historical events. This is the 
mildest judgment that can be pronounced upon her lack 
of conformity to actual facts. Every spark of love, 
ivhether that of wife or mother, would have urged upon 
Iter to be the more timely in freeing her husband from 
the reproach that was cast upon his name at the time of 
his death. And her testimony, had it been given thirty 
years earlier, when many were living who could have 
confirmed it, would have been of some actual value. But 
coming as it does, unsupported by any other known his- 
torical fact, and then at last offered only after it had 



288 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

been called out by "leading questions," casts the gravest 
doubts upon the integrity of her story. 

Such as it is, suspiciously given at a belated hour and 
under the stress of her son's anxiety, it was not without 
effect upon her son, as well as upon his followers. We 
shall now record the conclusions to which the younger 
Joseph came after having received this knowledge from 
his mother. The utterance which we shall quote is not 
recent by any means, despite the fact that he has had 
some discussions with the Brighamites, but his recent 
deliverances have not modified essentially this earlier 
statement, hence what is now to be given may be taken 
as an authoritative pronouncement of the Josephites 
upon the question. He says: 

It will be seen that in view of her departure at so early a 
date after the statements made by mother heretofore recorded, 
those statements may be regarded as her latest testimony upon 
the subjects named. It may be well that I here state my con- 
victions regarding the vexing question of polygamy. 

I believe that during the latter part of my father's life there 
was a discussion among the elders, and possibly in practice, a 
theory like the following: That persons who might believe that 
there was a sufficient degree of spiritual affinity between them as 
married companions, to warrant the desire to perpetuate that union 
in the world to come and after the resurrection, could go before 
some high priest whom they might choose, and there, making 
known their desire, might be married for eternity, pledging them- 
selves while in the flesh unto each other for the observance of 
the rights of companionship in spirit ; that this was called spir- 
itual marriage, and upon the supposition that what was sealed 
by the priesthood before which the pledge was made on earth, 
was sealed in heaven, the marriage relation then entered into 
would continue in eternity. 1 

He has yet more to say, but for the sake of facili- 
tating comment on what he does say we must interrupt 



l Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet," pp. 798, 799. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 289 

him right here. He has now described what he calls 
"spiritual marriages," but the "Elect Lady," whose "latest 
testimony" becomes the foundation for Kelly's belief, 
and by which testimony it is hoped that Marks, Sheen 
and Whitmer may be driven out of court, says expressly 
that when she and the prophet were talking about "spir- 
itual marriages," he said that they "were without foun- 
dation ; that there was no such doctrine, and never would 
be with his consent." Now, either Joseph Smith lied 
when he said this to his wife, or the "Elect Lady's" testi- 
mony is defective, in that she reported what the prophet 
never said, or Joseph Smith, the present head of the 
Reorganized Church, is mistaken when he thinks that 
there ever was anything in Nauvoo like a spiritual mar- 
riage. Yet he believes it, so he says. Inasmuch as no 
man's belief can be stronger than the evidence upon 
which it rests, one can but wonder how strongly he 
believes it. His mother did not say it in that portion of 
the testimony which he has seen fit to give to the world. 
Like the Book of Mormon, the testimony may be an 
"abridgment." Such a puerile doctrine as that men- 
tioned by Smith is not so much as hinted at in anything 
that purports to be official in the church publications. It 
is not in the Book of Covenants ; it is not in the Book of 
Mormon, "the fullness of the everlasting gospel," either 
in theory or in practice, and certainly it is not in the 
Bible. These facts Mr. Smith's standing in his church 
should require him to know. Furthermore, if by com- 
passing land or sea the Josephites could get one scintilla 
of evidence corroborating such a belief, they would rest 
neither night nor day until they had made out their case. 
Trusting that the interruption is pardonable, we shall 
allow our witness to tell us something more about his 
convictions : 



2Q0 MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

That this was not authorized by the command of God, or 
the rule of the church, but grew out of the constant discussion 
had among the elders; and after a time it resulted in the wish, 
the father of the thought, that married relationships rendered 
unpleasant here, by incompatibilities of different sorts, might be 
cured for the world to come, by securing through this means a 
congenial companion in the spirit; that there was a brief hesi- 
tancy between the wish and the attempt to put it into prac- 
tice. 1 

Let us not forget that this latest conclusion of the 
son is in direct opposition to the latest testimony of the 
mother. The mother says that no such thing as spiritual 
wifery had been taught either publicly or privately. The 
son says there was. He denies his mother's testimony, so 
that when he opposes this to the testimony of Sheen and 
Marks, we know exactly what value to place upon Mrs. 
Smith's evidence. We give it just the same weight that 
the young prophet does — none at all. Smith tells us that 
the discussion was "constant," and the "hesitancy brief,'"'' 
which indicates that converts were being made. But the 
"Elect Lady" says just the opposite. We might even 
grant the correctness of all that Mr. Smith has said, 
which as yet we are not ready to do, and all that he will 
have established will be the method by which the sin 
grew. And every proof employed to establish the method 
will at the same time establish the fact, and with the 
establishment of the fact "Sister Emma's" testimony- 
goes to pieces. 

Our anxiety deepens to hear what further Mr. Smith 
has to say, so until we become more anxious to say 
something for ourselves, we must allow him to proceed: 

That once started, the idea grew ; spiritual affinities were 
sought after, and in seeking them the hitherto sacred precincts 
of the home were invaded ; less and less of restraint was exer- 



1 Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet," p. 799. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 291 

cised; the lines between virtue and license, hitherto sharply- 
drawn, grew more and more indistinct; spiritual companionship, 
if sanctioned by a holy priesthood, to confer favors and pleas- 
ures in the world to come, might be antedated and put into 
actual test here — and so the enjoyment of a spiritual companion- 
ship in eternity, became a companionship here ; a wife, a spiritual 
wife, if congenial ; if not, one that was congenial was sought, 
and a wife in fact was supplemented by a wife in spirit, which 
in easy transition became one in essential earthly relationship. 
From this, if one, why not two or more, and plural marriage, or 
the plurality of wives, was the growth. 1 

But hold ! We must interrupt the speaker right here. 
Where was Joseph Smith all this time ? Either his influ- 
ence was contributory to these conditions, or he was 
exercising- a wholesome restraint upon these recalcitrant 
elders. Either he gave it his sanction, or he stood in 
direct opposition to it. It is incredible of belief that this 
autocrat of Nauvoo could have looked with complacency 
upon this that is confessed to be a growth, and that the 
"growth" could have been so rank, as the son says it was, 
without the prophet knowing something about it. What 
was he doing while "the sacred precincts of the home 
were being invaded"? What was he doing while "the 
favors and pleasures of the world to come were being 
antedated here"? Deponent saith that he was at home 
assuring Sister Emma that these "rumors" were without 
foundation, and that spiritual wifery was not taught 
either publicly or privately. Yet, according to the son's 
convictions, there were men and women who were one 
"in essential earthly relationship." Of course the prophet 
was guiltless, for the testimony says : "He did not have 
improper relations with any woman that ever came to my 
knowledge" It would seem that a spiritual harlequin 
could work no more astounding wizardy! 



^ullidge's "Life of the Prophet," pp. 799, 800. 



2Q2 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

By this time I am sure that the reader begins to see 
that the Josephites hold the testimony of Sister Emma 
as valueless in arriving at their "convictions." It were 
impossible to state a proposition with a more complete 
disregard for the utterances of another than in the ex- 
hibition before us. It seems to be an effort to show the 
prophet guiltless at any cost, and, as we shall presently 
discover, the son connects his father with the "growth" 
at a moment when it is too late for him to extirpate the 
plant. In his own words the story reads : 

That as soon as the prophet discovered that this must in- 
evitably be the result of the marriage between married com- 
panions, which for the time was looked upon as a harmless 
enlargement upon the priesthood theory, and rather tended to 
glorify them in doing business for eternity and the heavens, he 
set about correcting it. But the evil unnoted by him had taken 
root, and it was too late. What had been possibly innocently 
spiritual, became fleshly sensual — devilish. The long train of 
circumstances burst upon the people. He and Hyrum placed 
themselves in front of the impending storm and went down to 
death. That which in life they were powerless to prevent, rap- 
idly took the successive forms hitherto stated, and polygamy, 
after eight years of further fostering in secret, rose in terrible 
malignity essaying the destruction of the church. That my father 
may have been a party to the first step in this strange develop- 
ment, I am perhaps prepared to admit, though the evidence con- 
necting him with it is vague and uncertain ; but that he was in 
any other wise responsible for plural marriages, plurality of 
wives or polygamy, / do not know, nor are the evidences so far 
produced conclusive to force my belief. 1 

This conclusion of the younger Smith, called forth by 
the assurance that he received in his mother's testimony, 
is only slightly modified in a further concession. He has 
just conceded that his father might have been a party to 
the first step of the strange development, but later con- 

^ullidge's "Life of the Prophet," p. 800. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 293 

eluded that "polygamy may have been practiced in Nau- 
voo by John C. Bennett and others, and that it made 
inroads upon the flock despite the efforts of Joseph Smith 
against it, both in public and private." l 

We have taken the pains to set forth the most concise 
defense of the prophet's connection, chiefly valuable to 
us, because of the high standing in his church of the 
writer of these statements. And we still insist that the 
conclusion reached has been attained by processes inde- 
pendent of and contrary to the evidence offered by his 
"mother. And we hold that when this alleged interview 
is placed in opposition to the printed statement of Marks 
and Sheen, a statement made upward of thirty years 
before, the statement of Emma Smith is not worth the 
paper it is written on, or the time it took to secure it. 
For if her testimony stands, then the conclusions of the 
son fall. She says that her husband told her there was 
no such teaching, and that there would be none with his 
consent, but the younger Smith says that he is "prepared 
to admit that" his father "was a party to the strange 
development." 

But the prophet went down before the "impending 
storm." May we not ask what "storm"? "The long 
train of circumstances burst upon the people ;" may we 
not inquire what "train of circumstances"? As the wind 
always rushes in the direction of the low barometer, and 
with a velocity proportioned to the barometric pressure, 
so the "long train of circumstances" indicating the low 
barometric pressure in Nauvoo brought on the "storm" 
with such swiftness that the prophet and his brother 
went down before it. It was this "harmless enlargement 
of the priesthood theory," and this "doing business for 



l The Arena, May, 1903. 



294 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

eternity and the heavens," that roused the fury of the 
people, whose sense of decency, a decency cultivated long- 
before Smith had ever sought to pollute them, had been 
outraged by these abominable practices. When Presi- 
dent Smith says that he does not know whether his 
father had a further connection with the practice, he is 
doubtless telling the truth, for at that time he was too 
young to know ; but when, in the light of statements from 
people who do know, we are led to the "conviction" that 
Joseph Smith was a party to the immoral institution both 
in its inception and culture, he should have no reason to 
complain when we are " forced" to the belief that upon 
the infamous brow of Joseph Smith should be placed the 
brand of "author" of the whole thing. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 29$ 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Polygamist? — Continued. 

Since, as we have seen, the rebuttal evidence em- 
ployed by the Reorganized Church is taken from Emma 
Smith's interview, it will be of interest to trace her fur- 
ther connection with the institution of and perpetuation 
of polygamy. Her historian has this single paragraph, 
in which he disposes of her purported connection with 
the plural-wife system : 

Relative to Sister Emma's burning the original, we pass by, 
simply observing that there will be given before the close of this 
history what may be called her dying testimony on this very 
matter, written not two months before her death. Such a 
solemn testament in history must be all-potent and unanswer- 
able. 1 

How potent and how unanswerable this document 
may be, the reader can judge from the foregoing pages. 
And the insertion of the historian's declaration is made 
solely to show with what confidence this "dying testi- 
mony" is received. There are times that living testi- 
mony speaks louder than dying testimony. She had 
thirty-five years of living silence that are immeasurably 
more valuable in arriving at the facts than the last few 
minutes of her dying testimony. We say this now be- 
cause the facts are urgent in bringing to light the fact 
that Emma Smith-Bidamon did not correctly state the 
facts when she allowed herself to be interviewed; or 
else, as her son had allowed her to live those thirty-five 



l Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet," pp. 566, 567. 



296 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

eventful years without once mentioning the question to 
her, so also did he allow her to die, and the story was 
manufactured out of whole cloth. The grounds for this 
belief are as follows: 

First, we shall consider the direct testimony of sworn 
witnesses, and, second, we shall show that this supposi- 
tion is not at variance with the known practices of this 
head of the church. Taking them in this order, we have 
the 

CERTIFICATE OF LOVINIA WALKER. 1 

I, Lovinia Walker, hereby certify that while I was living 
with Aunt Emma Smith, in Fulton, Fulton County, Illinois, in 
the year 1849, she told me that she, Emma Smith, was present 
and witnessed the marriage and sealing of Eliza Partridge, 
Emily Partridge, Maria Lawrence and Sarah Lawrence to her 
husband, Joseph Smith, and that she gave her consent thereto. 

Lovinia Walker. 
We hereby witness that Lovinia Walker made and signed the 
above statement on the 16th day of June, A. D. 1869, of her own 
free will and accord. Hyrum Walker. 

Sarah E. Smith. 
Jos. F. Smith. 

To this it will be replied that the statement of Lovinia 
Walker, although regularly prepared in affidavit form, 
proves nothing, for the simple reason that it is unsup- 
ported. By this it is meant that no one else was present 
at the time when the reputed conversation was held, 
hence it establishes nothing. To this it may be replied 
that so far Whitmer, Marks and Sheen by their united 
testimony have laid the responsibility for the sin at 
Joseph Smith's door, and the only rebuttal has been the 
unsupported testimony of Emma Smith-Bidamon. What 
she is reported to have said is open to the same charge — 
no one was present when the conversation took place 



1 Quoted by Bays in "Doctrines and Dogmas of Mormonism," p. 376. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 297 

between her and her husband — and even what her hus- 
band told her has been denied by her son, as we have 
seen when considering his "convictions." But the state- 
ment of Lovinia Walker does not lack confirmation, as 
will be seen in the 

AFFIDAVIT OF EMILY D. P. YOUNG. 1 

Territory of Utah, County of Salt Lake, ss. 

Be it remembered that on the first day of May, A. D. 1869, 
personally appeared before me Elias Smith, judge of probate for 
said county, Emily Dow Partridge Young, who was by me sworn 
in due form of law, and upon her oath saith that on the eleventh 
day of May A. D. 1843, at the city of Nauvoo, county of Han- 
cock, State of Illinois, she was married or sealed to Joseph Smith, 
president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by 
James Adams, a high priest in said church, according to the law 
of the same regulating marriage, in the presence of Emma (Hale) 
Smith and Eliza Maria Partridge (Lyman). 

(Signed) Emily D. P. Young. 

Subscribed and sworn to by the said Emily D. P. Young the 
day and year first above written. E. Smith, 

Probate Judge. 

Now, from the foregoing we ascertain that Lovinia 
swears that her aunt, Mrs. Emma Smith, told her that 
she was a witness to the marriage of Emily Partridge to 
her husband, Joseph Smith, and that she gave her con- 
sent to the affair, and Emily D. P. Young, nee Emily 
Partridge, swears that more than a year before the death 
of Smith she was married to him in the presence 
of Mrs. Emma Smith, further affirming that it was 
according to the law of the church regulating marriage ; 
which confirms what was said in an earlier chapter, that 
the church had but the one marriage law, and that it was 
used for both the legitimate marriages and the "spiritual 

1 Quoted by Bays in "Doctrines and Dogmas of Mormonism," p. 377. 



298 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

marriages." These statements, from witnesses duly 
sworn, give us an inkling of the true attitude of Mrs. 
Smith during all these thirty-five years. Such knowl- 
edge on her part, as shown by these affidavits, would 
tend to a protracted delay in freeing her husband from 
any connection with the damnable sin. Still, Kelly pre- 
fers to believe the "Elect Lady ;" his averment fails to 
stipulate which part of her testimony he prefers to be- 
lieve. At any rate, it would seem that the "bride's" 
knowledge of the marriage should be worth something 
as evidence in the question before us. 

On the opposite page is the most recent testimony 
-which we have been able to discover. The reader will 
iind it profitable to read that page with care. To this 
page, on which we reproduce the affidavit of Lucy 
Walker Smith, we add, from Wyl's "Mormon Portraits" 
(p. 96), these words : 

On the first day of May, 1843, I officiated in the office of an 
■elder by marrying Lucy Walker to the prophet Joseph, at his 
own residence. 

During this period the prophet Joseph took several other 
wives, and amongst the number I well remember Emily Part- 
ridge, Sarah Ann Whitney, Helen Kimball and Flora Wood- 
worth. These all, he acknowledged to me, were his lawful wed- 
ded wives according to the celestial order. 

The foregoing statement Dr. Wyl takes from the 
records of Elder William Clayton, the recorder for the 
temple and private secretary to the prophet. Besides 
bringing confirmation to the affidavits of Lovinia Walker 
.and Emily D. P. Young, that the latter was the wedded 
wife of Joseph Smith, and that, too, with the consent of 
Mrs. Emma Smith, it brings additional evidence — evi- 
dence such as would be accepted in any court — namely, 
the united testimony of the officiating minister and the 



OATH OF LUCY WALKER SMITH, 
WIFB OP JOSEPH SMITH* JB . 



tTHTITED STAJ25 OK AMERICA, 
State of Utah 
County of Salt LaXe. 



U3CY WAIKKR SMITH, being first duly 



I »as a plural wife of the Prophet Joseph Saith, and was 
j aarried to his at Nauvoo in the Stats of Illinois, on the first 
I day or May, lMz, by Elder WUUasi Clayton. The Prophet was* 

then living with sis first wife, SmaafSsith, and I know that 
| she gave her consent to the marriage of at least four wo-;- to 

her husband aa plural wires, and that she was well aware -that he 
I associated and cohabited with then as 'wives. The names of 
I those women were, tliza and Esily Partridge, and Maria and 
I Sarah Lawrence, all if whoss knew that 1 too was hia «lfo. 

I of plural carriage to r.e I felt indignant and so exyreaaea ssy. 
J self to his,, -because -y feelings and education were averse to 
anything of J. hat. nature. But ho assured r... that this doctrine 
had been ravealed to hisv of the Zcrt, and tVaf- I was entitled 
j to receive a test teeny of its di^ir.e origin fcrnyeelf. Ha 
jj counselled ce to pray to the lord, which I did, and thereupon 
I received fromHte a powerful' and irresistible testimony of the 
a truthfulness and divinity of plural marriage, which testimony jjaa 
| abided with, sis e-ver, since. 



! .Subscribed and sworn to before »se 
' tn iB •^•^f" d ay of0ctober,1902. 




Notary Public, 



y> 



<pv 



AFFIDAVIT OF LUCY WALKER SMITH. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 299 

bride — that Joseph Smith actually was in polygamy. 
And what is to the point is that Emma Smith gave her 
consent to the prophet's endeavors to "enlarge the priest- 
hood theory," and seems not to have revolted as he 
"antedated and put to actual test here" the favors and 
pleasures of the life to come. And this brings us back 
to our initial proposition of this chapter, that either 
Emma Smith-Bidamon's dying testimony is at variance 
with actual knowledge during her life, or else the son, 
as a matter of last resort, has given to the world a ficti- 
tious interview. 

Let not the reader think that this utterance is too 
harsh, for it is a course that is in keeping with their 
known methods in conducting a debate. Let one illus- 
tration suffice, after which we shall again pick up the 
thread of our narrative. Understand, we are dealing 
with this question from the evidence that the son of the 
prophet has used, and we hold that as a possible explana- 
tion of the incoherency of the several known facts that 
their variance may be accounted for on the ground of 
gross misrepresentation on the part of the younger 
prophet, and we affirm that this is in exact accord with 
his methods. Now for the proof. 

When he makes a quotation, he adroitly omits the 
part that is directly opposed to what he is attempting to 
prove. When he uses an author, he brings into his 
employ an acquired or native facility of abridgment, and 
represents that abridgment to be the quoted author's 
actual conclusion. He so uses Samuel Smucker's work, 
where, in his "History of the Mormons" (p. 174), he 
has this to say: 

It is utterly incredible that Joseph Smith, who, great im- 
postor as he was, never missed an opportunity to denounce sedu- 
cers and adulterers as unfit to enter his church, should have been 



300 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

concerned directly or indirectly in proceedings like these, though 
it is scarcely surprising that when such stories had been circu- 
lated by men whom the prophet had thwarted or reprimanded, 
there should have been found some persons willing to credit 
them. 

This is represented as having been written by an 
unfriendly author, and is quoted to show that in the esti- 
mation of this author it were incredible that Joseph 
Smith should have been connected with polygamy or 
spiritual marriage, although when such a story was 
once started there would be some who are willing to 
give the story credence. Now, here is where the decep- 
tion appears : Smucker tried to tell the history of the 
Mormons by using facts as he was able to glean them 
from the Mormons themselves. This he said he would 
do, "whenever it is possible to do so, present their his- 
tory in the words of their own writers, appending such 
statements on the other side as may be necessary for the 
exposition of the truth." By that rule his work should 
be judged. 

Had this investigator of his father's connection with 
this peculiar doctrine been more careful in his study of 
this author, or more honest with himself and his readers,, 
he would have discovered, on pages 412 and 413 of this 
same work, these words : 

The religion of the Mormons is emphatically a social relig- 
ion ; and the social relations which it commends and introduces 
are the most marked and pernicious attributes which belong to 
it. The prominent and peculiar feature in this part of the system 
is the defense and prevalence of polygamy, which Joe Smith first 
introduced at the commencement of his career, and which has 
ever since (the book was published in 1856) prevailed among his 
followers. So abhorrent is this vice to every enlightened senti- 
ment of human nature, so repugnant to all that is elevating in 
social existence, that even the leaders of these fanatics have been 
compelled to veil its evident enormity under the garb of Scrip- 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMTST? 301 

tural sanction and religious character ; and they consequently 
term it the spiritual-wife doctrine. 

The doctrine had its sole origin in the lust and sensuality of 
the founder of Mormonism, and it had its perpetuity in the. same 
qualities of his successors. Then, on page 416, we read as fol- 
lows : Joe Smith had over forty wives in Nauvoo, and yet the 
number of his offspring fell far short of that of Young. It has 
been asserted by those familiar with the facts that not one af 
all the children born to polygamists in Nauvoo ever lived 'to -see 
their present capital. Many of the wives of Smith were espoused 
by Young after the death of the former, the personal tastes and 
standards of conjugal excellence of the two prophets being sim- 
ilar. 

This quotation, just completed, has not been made in 
the hope of using any part of it as proof that Joseph 
Smith was a polygamist, but has been given to show that 
his son, the present head of the Reorganized Church, is 
not above using perfidy and dishonesty when he seeks to 
carry an issue. And if he will thus misrepresent an 
author, as he has Smucker, by taking an isolated passage 
and offering that as proof, who will dare to affirm that 
the so-called testimony of Emma Smith — testimony 
whose incorrectness we can not examine as we have 
Smucker's volume— has not been manufactured out of 
the whole cloth? If it is said that Smucker did not 'know 
what he was talking about, and that this part of his story 
is valueless as proving anything, then we say that the 
conduct of this younger prophet is none the less repre- 
hensible. It is to his credit to condemn polygamy, but 
his methods proclaim the weakness of his defense. To 
distort the writings of another to make them prove one's 
assertions, argues the indefensibleness of the position 
taken. This has all along been the demonstrated weak- 
ness of the Josephite's defense. And the sum of our 
contention is this : we have shown the utter unreliability 
of the "Elect Lady's" testimony, when used to contradict 



302 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

the testimony of Marks, Sheen and Whitmer. And until 
that can be shaken, so long as human testimony is com- 
petent to prove anything, Joseph Smith, Jr., will stand 
convicted of the crime of polygamy. 

We are now to introduce evidence that shall be as 
conclusive in convicting this arch-heretic of his heinous 
sins, as that which we have already presented, although 
our approach to the question shall be from a different 
direction. The affiants whom we are now to introduce 
were held in high repute by the prophet, and apart from 
his connection with the "secret-wife system," they had 
no charge against the prophet, believing to the very last 
that he was a prophet. At a time when General Bennett 
was causing the prophet some trouble, and it was de- 
sirous to reply to Bennett's charges, Ebenezer Robinson 
was one who came to the prophet's rescue. Consequently 
his otherwise favorable attitude toward Joseph Smith 
will commend to us the correctness of his sworn testi- 
mony on the polygamy question. The affidavit reads : 

To Whom It May Concern : 

We, Ebenezer Robinson and Angeline Robinson, husband 
and wife, hereby certify that in the fall of 1843, Hyrum Smith, 
brother of Joseph Smith, came to our house at Nauvoo, Illinois, 
and taught the doctrine of polygamy. And I, the said Ebenezer 
Robinson, hereby further state that he gave me special instruc- 
tion how I could manage the matter so as not to have it known 
to the public. He also told us that while he had heretofore 
opposed the doctrine, he was wrong and his brother Joseph was 
right ; referring to his teaching it Ebenezer Robinson. 

Angeline Robinson. 

Sworn to and subscribed before me this 29th day of Decem- 
ber, 1873. J. M. Salle, Notary Public. 
(L. S.) 

After a time, when this affidavit had become more 
widely circulated, attention was called to that ''special 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 303 

instruction" referred to, and in order to clear up what 
otherwise was held to be ambiguous, Mrs. Robinson 
having deceased in the meanwhile, Mr. Robinson had 
prepared this second affidavit : * 

To Whom It May Concern : 

This is to certify that in the latter part of November or 
December, 1843, Hyrum Smith (brother of Joseph Smith, presi- 
dent of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) came 
to my home in Nauvoo, Illinois, and taught me the' doctrine of 
spiritual wives, or polygamy. He said that he had heard the 
voice of the Lord give the revelation on spiritual wifery (polyg- 
amy) to his brother Joseph, and that while he had heretofore 
opposed the doctrine, he was wrong and his brother Joseph was 
right all the time. 

He told me to make selection of some young woman and he 
would send her to me, and take her to my home, and if she 
should have an heir, to give out word that she had a husband 
who had gone on a mission to a foreign country. He seemed 
to be disappointed when I declined to do so. E. Robinson. 

Davis City, Iowa, October 23, 1885. 

Subscribed and sworn to before me, a notary public in and 
for Decatur County, Iowa, this 24th day of October, A. D. 1885. 

Z. H. Gurley, Notary Public. 

These affidavits make Hyrum Smith the evangelist of 
this new doctrine,- but they show Joseph Smith to be the 
instigator, unless Hyrum lied to Robinson and his wife; 
but they are chiefly valuable to us in answering that puz- 
zling question propounded so frequently by the Joseph- 
ites. In his correspondence debate with Joseph F. Smith 
of the Utah Church, Joseph of the Iowa contingent took 
the position that if Joseph Smith, Jr., was the polygamist 
that his enemies make him out to be, where is the fruit 
of those marriages? It was argued by him that a man 
so virile as Smith was known to be could not have sus- 



a Biographical and Historical Records of Ringgold and Decatur Coun- 
ties, Iowa, pp. 543, 544. 



304 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

tained marital relations in this largely promiscuous man- 
ner without there having been some children born to 
such unions; and, if such children were born, then pro- 
duce them ! 

Willard Smith, in a little volume entitled "Joseph 
Smith: Who was He?" says, on page 27 of that work, 
that "Joseph Smith was a strong, well-proportioned, 
plethoric man, weighing two hundred and ten pounds, 
and standing six feet in his stocking feet. He was the 
father of eight children by his wife Emma, whom he 
married in 1827, but where is his issue, or the children 
born to him, by any other woman? Echo answers, 
Where? It is therefore unreasonable to say he was mar- 
ried to, or had marital relations with, ten or a dozen 
other women, or perhaps more, and had no children by 
any of them." 

The argument appears very forceful, and if such 
children could be exhibited, doubtless it would tend to 
the settlement of the question. But in the light of 
Robinson's affidavit we are not hemmed in to any such 
a test. The instigators of this system were not fools, 
exactly, and in inventing the system they doubtless had 
in mind the results of the system, and arranged for any 
possible contingency. It is only fair to assume that any 
man who would participate by the direction of the 
prophet, or any of his emissaries, in this "harmless 
enlargement of the priesthood theory," would have sense 
enough to follow the directions ; and the "directions" 
said: "And if she should have an heir, to give out that 
she had a husband who had gone as a missionary to a 
foreign country." 

We have seen that Smucker says that the children 
born in polygamy never reached Salt Lake City, but even 
if a wagonload of them could now be found, it would be 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 305 

as easy for the average Josephite to deny that they are 
the children of the prophet, as it is for them to deny the 
fact that certain women who swear to it are the wives 
of the prophet. They would still say to every such 
youngster, 'Trove it! We do not know." 



306 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
Was Joseph Smith, Jr., a Polygamist? — Concluded. 

Under date of Sept. 5, 1886, Mercy R. Thompson 
directed a letter to Joseph III., of Lamoni, Iowa, from 
which we take the following : 

. . . My beloved husband, R. B. Thompson, your father's 
private secretary to the end of 'his mortal life, died August 27, 
1841 (I presume you will remember him). Nearly two years 
after his death your father told me that my husband had ap- 
peared to him several times, telling him that he did not wish 
me to request your uncle Hyrum to have me sealed to him for 
time. Hyrum communicated this to his wife (my sister), who, 
by request, opened the subject to me, when everything within me 
rose in opposition to such a step ; but when your father called 
and explained the subject to me, I dared not refuse to obey the 
counsel, lest peradventure I should be found fighting against 
God, and especially when he told me that the last my husband 
appeared to him he came with such power that it made him 
tremble. 

He then inquired of the Lord what he should do ; and the 
answer was, "Go and do as my servant hath required." He 
then took all opportunity to communicate this to your uncle 
Hyrum, who told me that the Holy Spirit rested upon him from 
the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. The time was 
appointed, with the consent of all parties, and your father sealed 
me to your uncle Hyrum for time, in my sister's room, with a 
covenant to deliver me up in the morning of the resurrection to 
Robert Blaskell Thompson with whatever offspring should result 
of the union, at the same time counseling your uncle to build a 
room for me and move me over as soon as convenient, which he 
did, and I remained there as his wife the same as my sister to 
the day of his death. All this I am ready to testify to in the 
presence of God, angels and men. 1 



1 Quoted by Bays in "Doctrines and Dogmas of Mormonism," pp. 3S3, 384.. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 307 

This, so far as human testimony can settle anything - , 
determines that Hyrum Smith was the husband of two 
wives at the time of his death. As we have seen, that 
instead of one, Joseph had not less than five, viz. : Emma 
Hale, Eliza Partridge, Emily Partridge, Maria Lawrence 
and Sarah Lawrence, while the Utah people have discov- 
ered a like relationship with about twenty-seven. Well 
does the historian bestow this eulogy upon these two 
dead brothers : "In life they were not divided, and in 
death they were not separated." There is a sort of poetic 
justice that this should be so; and instead of martyrdom, 
as the Saints have so fondly declared, it was a visitation 
of God, as their own publication once announced. 

We are now enabled, to judge of the correctness of 
the accusation made by Joseph F. Smith against his 
cousin, Joseph III. He says : 

He and his brothers visited this city (Salt Lake City) and 
here met ladies who assured them that they were united in mar- 
riage to his father in the city of Nauvoo, but, to use his own 
words, he prefers to believe to the contrary. That is to say, 
positive, definite testimony of living witnesses to a given fact, 
corroborated by written documents and indisputable circum- 
stances, are counted for nothing in view of a preference to a 
disbelief in their accuracy. 1 

This retort just now placed" before the reader removes 
that probability that if there were any women in Utah 
who claimed to be the wives of Joseph Smith, Jr., they 
became such through the kindly offices of Brigham, 
et al., acting as "proxies." But the evidence says that 
they were united in marriage to Joseph in Nauvoo. 

So far as the question is concerned, "Was Joseph 
Smith, Jr., a polygamist?" the evidence has tended to 
the "conviction" that he both taught and practiced polyg- 



1 Arena, November, 1902. 



308 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

amy while residing at Nauvoo, 111., and ordinarily we 
might content ourselves with the study we have already 
devoted to the problem ; but a deeper interest warrants 
us in tracing Joseph Smith's connection with the "reve- 
lation" on polygamy. It appears to have been delivered 
in a church conference in Salt Lake City in the month of 
August, 1852, and announcement was then made that it 
had been delivered to Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, July 12, 
1843, about eleven months before the prophet's death, 
and was published in a periodical known as th~ Millen- 
nial Star in January, 1853. So far as we know, this is 
the statement of the question when accepted for debate 
between the disputants. As is shown by the discussion 
between the rival presidents, each has some show of 
evidence for his side of the vexing question, but which, 
when reduced to its last analysis, is only a war of words 
between these leaders as to which fraud has legitimately 
descended from the original fraud. It may be that the 
question is not worth the time we are giving it, but for 
the sake of freeing a people from this delusion and 
snare, we shall venture a little further. 

As the case now stands, there are some who believe 
that Joseph Smith, the prophet, actually received the 
revelation which, for prudential reasons, was withheld 
from the world until political conditions had ripened for 
its announcement. Others hold that Joseph Smith, Jr., 
had no connection with the revelation, but say instead 
that it is the special creation of Brigham Young 

From the Brighamite side the story is as follows: 
William Clayton, the private secretary of Joseph Smith, 
took down the revelation in the exact words of the 
prophet as they fell from the seer's lips. A copy was 
made of it, which was placed into the hands of N. K. 
Whitney, while "Sister Emma burnt the original." Whit- 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 309 

ney gave the copy into the hands of Young, who kept it 
under lock and key, known to none save a few who were 
counted "safe," until the revelation was read on the date 
above noted, by Orson Pratt. It is further stated that 
when the revelation was originally given, it was read in 
Nauvoo to the High Council by Hyrum Smith, brother to 
the prophet. These several statements, together with the 
affidavits of women who affirmed that they were the 
wives of the prophet while in Nauvoo, constitute the 
Brighamite side of the story. 

As rebuttal, we note that the Josephites offer the 
testimony of Emma Smith, saying that she did not burn 
the original, and that she was not aware that there ever 
was such a revelation. They further allege that no 
church paper connects Joseph Smith with the crimes 
charged against him. The younger Smith says : 

That plural marriages or polygamy was not a church tenet 
during the lifetime of Joseph and Hyrum Smith is clearly estab- 
lished by the fact that there- can not be found any public state- 
ment either in sermon, tract, treatise or paper, written or pub- 
lished by any officer of the church, or any persons of the church, 
by their direction, either advocating or defending the dogma. 1 

It will be seen that this is rather a guarded state- 
ment, and it assumes that no proof is admissible except 
it come in the form of a church publication, under ex- 
press sanction of the church, purporting to come from 
the highest authority among them, or by some persons 
who have been especially authorized to set forth this 
doctrine. The "revelation" is such a paper, and the mere 
denial that it is is insufficient to destroy its genuineness. 
That this is the merest begging of the question does not 
disturb the equanimity of mind of the prophet's son. 



^Arena, August, 1902. 



3 io M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Let us now see whether the prophet can be connected 
with the sin of polygamy, and the pretended sanction 
that he gave it in the revelation. The facts upon which 
we depend, in their order, are as follows : 

First : Hyrum Smith taught the doctrine of polygamy 
to Ebenezer Robinson and his wife, Angeline Robinson,, 
in Nauvoo in the autumn of 1843. 

Proof: See affidavit given above. 

Second : Joseph Smith was married to Emily Part- 
ridge on May 11, 1843, by James Adams, high priest of 
the church, in the presence of Emma Smith, his legal 
wife. 

Proof: See affidavits given above. 

Third : Hyrum Smith was married to Mercy R. 
Thompson, widow of R. B. Thompson, and lived with 
her as wife till the time of his death. 

Proof: Affidavit given above. 

Fourth : Hyrum Smith read the revelation to the 
High Council, thus establishing the fact of its existence 
in Nauvoo during the lifetime of the prophet. 

Proof: (a) Testimony of David Fullmer. 

Territory of Utah, County of Salt Lake, ss. 

Be it remembered that on this 15th day of June, A. D. 1869, 
personally appeared before me James Jack, a notary public in 
and for said county, David Fullmer, who was by me sworn in 
due form of law, and upon his oath saith that on or about the 
12th day of August, A. D. 1843, while in a meeting with the 
High Council (he being a member thereof), in Hyrum Smith's 
brick office, in the city of Nauvoo, county of Hancock, State of 
Illinois, Dunbar Wilson made inquiry in relation to the subject 
of plurality of wives, as there were rumors respecting it, and 
he was satisfied there was something in these remarks, and he 
wanted to know what it was, upon which Hyrum Smith stepped 
across the road to his residence, and soon returned bringing with 
him a copy of the revelation on celestial marriage, given by- 
Joseph Smith, July 12, 1843, and read the same to the High 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 311 

Council, and bore testimony of its truth. The said David Full- 
mer further saith that to the best of his memory and belief the 
following named persons were present : Wm. Marks, Austin A. 
Cawles, Samuel Bent, George W. Harris, Dunbar Wilson, Wm. 
Huntington, Levi Jackman, Aaron Johnson, Thomas Grover, 
David Fullmer, Phineas Richards, James Allred and Leonard 
Soby. And the said David Fullmer further saith that Wm. 
Marks, Austin A. Cowles and Leonard Soby were the only per- 
sons present who did not receive the testimony of Hyrum Smith, 
and that all the others did receive it from the teaching and 
testimony of said Hyrum Smith. And further that the copy of 
said revelation of celestial marriage, published in the Deseret 
News extra of September 14, A. D. 1852, is a true copy of the 
same. David Fullmer. 

Subscribed and sworn to by said David Fullmer the day and. 
year first above written. James Jack, Notary Public. 

Proof: (b) Extract of Thomas Grover's letter: 

The High Council of Nauvoo was called together by the: 
prophet Joseph Smith to know whether they would accept the 
revelation on celestial marriage or not. The Presidency of the 
Stake, Wm. Marks, Father Cowles and the late apostle, Charles 
C. Rich, were there present. The following are the names of the 
High Council that were present in their order : Samuel Bent, 
William Huntington, Alpheus Cutler, Thomas Grover, Lewis D. 
Wilson, David Fullmer, Aaron Johnson, Newel Knight, Leonard 
Soby, Isaac Allred, Henry G. Sherwood, and, I think, Samuel 
Smith. Brother Hyrum Smith was '"called upon to read the 
revelation. He did so, and, after reading it, said : "Now you 
that believe this revelation and go forth to obey the same, 
shall be saved, and you that reject it shall be damned." We 
saw this prediction verified in less than one week. Of the 
presidency, William Marks and Father Cowles rejected the rev- 
elation; of the council that were present, Leonard Soby rejected 
it. From that time forward there was a very strong division in 
the High Council. These three men greatly diminished in spirit 
day after day, so that there was a great difference in the line of 
their conduct, which was perceivable to every member that kept 
the faith. From that time forth we often received instructions 
from the prophet as to what was the will of the Lord and how 
to oroceed. 



. 3 i2 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Proof: (c) Affidavit of Leonard Soby: 

State of New Jersey, County of Burlington, ss. 

Be it remembered that on this 14th day of November, A. D. 
1883, personally appeared before me, J. W. Roberts, a justice 
-of peace, county and State aforesaid, Leonard Soby, who was by 
me sworn in due form of law, and upon oath saith that on or 
about the 12th day of August, 1843, in the city of Nauvoo, in 
the State of Illinois, in the county of Hancock, before the High 
Council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of 
which body and council aforesaid he was a member, personally 
appeared one Hyrum Smith, of the presidency of said church, 
and brother to Joseph Smith, the president and prophet of the 
same church, and presented to said council the revelation on 
polygamy, enjoining its observance and declaring it came from 
God; unto which a large majority of the council agreed and 
assented, believing it to be of a celestial order, though no vote 
was taken upon it, for the reason that the voice of the prophet, 
in such matters, was understood to be the voice of God to the 
■church, and that said revelation was presented, as before stated, 
,as coming from Joseph Smith, and was received by us as other 
revelations had been. The said Leonard Soby saith that Elder 
Austin Cowles, a member of the High Council aforesaid, did 
subsequently to the 12th day of August openly declare against 
:said doctrine on polygamy, and the doctrine therein contained. 

Leonard Soby. 
Subscribed and sworn to by said Leonard Soby the day and 
year first above written. John W. Roberts, 

Justice of Peace. 1 

That these several statements have been called forth 
by those who are interested in making it appear that 
Joseph Smith, Jr., was a polygamist and was the author 
of the revelation on that subject, does not necessarily 
invalidate them. The Josephites have not felt them be- 
neath their notice. The Ogden (Utah) Herald, under 
date of Jan. 5, 1886, related a very interesting story 



a The above affidavits were presented in the Littlefield-Smith debate and 
were published by Ogden Herald in 1886. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 313 

about the effort made by the Josephites to overthrow the 
force of this evidence. According to that paper, by the 
direction of Joseph Smith, of the Reorganized Church, 
a Mr. Gurley was sent to confer with Leonard Soby, and 
while there presented an affidavit ready-made for him to 
sign, which was to the effect that he was not present at 
the meeting in which the revelation was read. But Mr. 
Soby did not agree to do this, offering instead to sign 
one that he was present. Mr. Soby later, when ques- 
tioned by Littlefield, of the Utah Church, about the affi- 
davit, wrote to the effect that the statement made by the 
Utah Herald was correct. D. H. Bays, a personal friend 
of Mr. Gurley, secured the added information that he 
(Gurley) had actually conferred with Soby, and fully 
satisfied himself that he had opposed polygamy as he had 
said, but that he later decided, as did Hyrum Smith, that 
he was wrong and Joseph was right — "as set forth in 
Robinson's affidavit." This is in substantial confirmation 
not alone of the correctness of the Robinson affidavit in 
which he (Robinson) spoke of Hyrum Smith's attitude,. 
first opposed and then in favor of polygamy, but it gives 
credence to Soby's affidavit in which he says that he was 
present when the revelation was read. 

Right here we could write quod erat demonstrandum 
esse, except that the Josephites would bring in their old 
trumped-up charge that this is all the outgrowth of the 
conspiracy on the part of the Brighamites and those who 
were known to be the avowed enemies of the prophet in 
his last days at Nauvoo. Says Willard J. Smith ; "It is 
only through the testimony of Brigham Young that the 
odium of polygamy was ever attached to the name of 
Joseph Smith." This and the foregoing chapters are 
direct proof of the substantial falsity of that statement. 
Other than to state the Brighamite side of the question, 



.314 MORMON ISM AGAINST ITSELF 

we have not appealed to any proof derived from Brig- 
ham Young. We have seen that all polygamy ever came 
to be was such because of the reputed authority con- 
ferred upon it by Smith's bogus revelation, and the 
blame directly rests upon that unworthy wretch. 

We want, however, briefly to consider the incident of 
the Nauvoo Expositor. Joseph III. says : "Polygamists, 
Hedrickites and the Anti-Mormon League, all driven 
from the position they have taken in their efforts to 
fasten polygamy upon Joseph Smith, have resurrected 
the Nauvoo Expositor, and taken refuge under that con- 
spiracy of lies." We must not shrink from considering 
it just because of this harsh characterization of the inci- 
dent. We remember to have said some things almost as 
harsh, except that we were at times slightly more parlia- 
mentary in the terms we employed. However, that was 
what we meant, although, thanks to him, we did not have 
the words at our command until now. 

The historian of the Reorganized Church not dispas- 
sionately says : 

About this time arose the most dangerous conspiracy of 
apostates that had threatened the life of the prophet. The 
seceders were not numerous, but they were headed by the brothers 
William and Wilson Law, the latter having been major-general 
of the Legion, the Higbees, Fosters and other formidable foes. 
These sought to establish in Nauvoo an incendiary paper, called 
the Nauvoo Expositor, the avowed purpose of which was to stir 
up the people of Illinois to bring Joseph Smith to justice for 
his crimes, and to expel the Saints from the State. It was like 
"building the magazine of the enemy in the city of refuge; and 
so, after the first number of the Expositor, the Nauvoo city 
council declared the paper a public nuisance and dangerous to 
the peace of the commonwealth ; and they thereupon ordered the 
office of the paper demolished by the marshal and his posse. 1 



1 Tullidge's "Life of the Prophet," pp. 475, 476. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 315 

After this order had been executed, a retaliatory 
measure was adopted on the part of the proprietors of 
the paper, which called for the arrest of the instigators 
of this plot to destroy this property, but the case was 
switched from the court at Carthage, whence the war- 
rant was issued, and the offenders were tried before the 
municipal court, and, of course, were forthwith dis- 
charged. 

In that paper there were three affidavits, by Mr. and 
Mrs. William Law and Austin Cowles. The one by Mrs. 
Law affirmed that she had read the revelation, while 
those by Cowles and Law dealt with the question of 
Hyrum Smith having read the revelation before the High 
Council. Tullidge is wrong in interpolating into his his- 
tory that the avowed purpose of this paper was to expel 
the Saints from the State. It did not say so, end that 
alone will constitute "an avowed purpose." The pre- 
amble showed that the editors were "Saints," for they 
affirmed their belief in the Book of Mormon and the 
Book of Doctrine and Covenants. Their crime was that 
they were seeking to "explode the vicious principles of 
Joseph Smith," and it is to their everlasting credit that 
they were willing to take their lives into their hand for 
such a noble work. They furthermore asserted that they 
had sought to cleanse the church without this public 
exposure, but that Smith's headstrong policy forbade the 
more peaceable measures. But, whether right or wrong, 
in either their methods or their statements, that one issue 
of the Nauvoo Expositor must forever silence the 
Josephite who seeks to place upon the life of Brigham 
Young the sin of originating polygamy. Young was not 
present then ; Joseph Smith was the "author and pro- 
prietor" of the revelation. 

Now followed the characteristic course of the Saints, 



316 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

they sought to break down the characters of the men 
who opposed them. This was on June 7, 1844, that the 
paper was printed. On June 19, in a paper called the 
Neighbor, appeared a statement over the signature of 
Joseph Smith, mayor, as follows : 

The city is infested with a set of blacklegs, counterfeiters 
and debauchees, and that the proprietors of this were of that 
class, the minutes of the municipal court fully testify; and in 
ridding our young and flourishing city of such characters, we 
are abused by not only villainous demagogues, but by some who 
from their station and influence ought rather to raise than de- 
press the standard of human excellence. 

Yet of this city so crime-infested he. adds: 

Every one is protected in his person and property, and but 
few cities of a population of twenty thousand people in the 
United States have less of dissipation or vice of any kind than, 
the city of Nauvoo. 

Just when these men became counterfeiters and deb- 
auchees we can not learn of the Smiths. On Oct. 
I, 1842, they were in good standing; that is, some of 
them were. At that time, in answer to the expose made 
by General Bennett of the secret-wife system, Joseph 
busied himself to prove that the story was a fabrication 
of Bennett. To do this he secured the names of twelve 
men and nineteen women who bore testimony with him 
against Bennett. Among these we find the names of 
Wilson Law, Elias Higbee, Jane Law and Sarah Higbee. 
And as late as April of the eventful year 1844 Hyrum 
Smith said in conference : "I wish to speak about Messrs. 
Law's steam-mill. The mill has been a great benefit to 
the city. It has brought thousands who would not have 
come here. The Messrs. Law have sunk capital and done 
a great amount of good. It is out of character to cast 
any aspersions on the Messrs. Law." Hence, we say, it 
is difficult to learn at what time these men lost caste with. 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 317 

the Smiths and were converted into "blacklegs, coun- 
terfeiters and debauchees." Doubtless Joseph compli- 
mented himself upon so early discovering this alarming 
situation. 

It may aid the reader somewhat to call his attention 
to the fact that this fits into the precise time, as shown 
by the document concerning William Marks, in which he 
declares that he had a talk with the prophet concerning 
polygamy, and the stir that was incident to the question 
of polygamy was occasioned by that all-engrossing ques- 
tion to that community. This accounts for the subject- 
matter of the paper, as it accounts for the time that was 
chosen to publish the paper. This also gives us the 
reason for the apostasy of the decent part of the com- 
munity. 

Of the incident in its entirety, D. H. Bays says: 

If they (the Smiths) were innocent of the crimes charged 
by the Expositor, why did not the leaders openly invite a careful 
investigation of the charges? Why should it be thought neces- 
sary, simply because they have the power in their own hands, to 
suppress the freedom of speech and the liberty of the press in 
this wanton manner? To the unbiased, reflective mind there is 
but one answer to the question : they feared the consequences of 
further exposure of these men who stood so near the prophet, 
and who therefore knew whereof they affirmed. These are the 
most probable reasons why the office of the Expositor was de- 
molished and its press broken in pieces and thrown into the 
Mississippi River. 1 

The formidable foes, as Tullidge calls them, were not 
such because they were blacklegs, counterfeiters and deb- 
auchees, but because they were mighty in the pulling 
down of this stronghold of sin by omnipotent truth. We 
need not begrudge the Josephites the little consolation 
they get out of this by calling it a "conspiracy of lies." 

^'Doctrines and Dogmas of Mormonism," p. 367. 



318 MORMONISM AGAINST ITSELF 

Every admitted fact only serves to place the brand of 
infamy upon the foreheads of these pious scoundrels. 

The study which we have given to this question has 
had nothing to do with the abstract question whether 
polygamy is right or wrong. We have assumed that its 
practice has been of baneful and baleful influence and 
have made no effort to depict its hideousness. It stands 
condemned by every noble sentiment that the human 
heart can feel. Others have told us of its ravages while 
passing by the less inviting task which this study has 
imposed. We have sought in the light of the testimony 
that was available to us to trace the practice of this sin 
to its origin. And, as we now look at it, our double task 
is done; we have shown that Joseph Smith, Jr., both 
practiced and taught polygamy in Nauvoo, Illinois, and 
that he is the author of the revelation relating to celestial 
marriage. 

The present status of polygamy is an entirely differ- 
ent question, and requires from us but slight consider- 
ation in this chapter. The popular notion is that when 
the declaration was made by Wilford Woodruff in the 
name of the Utah Church that polygamy should cease, 
that it there and then became a closed incident. Pre- 
sumably, polygamous marriages were abandoned. Be- 
cause of the belief that it was, Congress passed an 
enabling act for the admission of Utah as a State. That 
act held that polygamous marriages were fore\er pro- 
hibited. It seems, however, that there was something 
about the construction placed upon such marriages that 
all offenders should become amenable to the law only 
upon the ground of unlawful cohabitation. But this 
could be proved only by the appearance of offspring, the 
same kind of an argument that the Josephites make for 
Joseph Smith, Jr. Then, when the crime was proved, the 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMlSTf 319 

fine was so small and insignificant that the law becomes 
practically invalid. The head of the Utah Church has 
recently paid the maximum fine, five hundred dollars, 
and now may with impunity continue to exercise his 
polygamous rights ( ! ) . 

The recent Reed Smoot investigation developed some 
facts that throw light upon the problem. The committee 
from Congress that was conducting the investigation 
confessed to surprise that the president of the church 
not only believed in the right of polygamous marriages 
in the abstract, but was practicing polygamy to the tune 
of five wives. And he insolently gave Congress to under- 
stand that it has no right to interfere with his private 
affairs ; and Congress seems so to understand. This 
same amiable Mormon assured representatives from 
Congress that he was the father of forty-two children, 
and that eleven of them had been born since the mani- 
festo (this number is now twelve, at least). Furthermore, 
there were eight of the twelve apostles who in authority 
rank next to him who are in polygamy. They rest in the 
assurance that Congress has no power and the State has 
no disposition to interfere. Hence, with an impotent 
Federal Government and an indisposed home govern- 
ment — indisposed because it is under the absolute con- 
trol of an hierarchy — they have little to fear. They con- 
tend, further, that the manifesto of 1890 only interdicted 
future plural marriages, and assumed that it were right 
that former illegal marriages were thus legalized. To 
abandon a woman taken in polygamy is sin, so says the 
Mormon. 

And more alarming is the fact that five of the apos- 
tles have taken additional wives since the manifesto. 
That they still retain their office is manifest evidence 
that the church is in sympathy with polygamy, despite 



320 M0RM0NISM AGAINST ITSELF 

State laws. Parties can go into Mexico, for instance, 
and there be married and upon their return with illegal 
wives with nothing to molest or make afraid until the 
birth of a child, the only legal evidence of crime, and be 
guiltless upon payment of a fine. The practical result is 
a subsidized adultery. 

It is only fair to conclude that so long as the head of 
the church and the apostolic band continue in their enjoy- 
ment of the "Abrahamic blessings," so long will polyg- 
amy continue to be a menace to our country. Apostle 
Woodruff holds that this article is still vital to the 
church's faith. While it is held in abeyance through 
deference to or fear of State laws, it is nevertheless 
believed to be right. To deny this as an article of faith 
is to deny the prophet. So long as these conditions pre- 
vail, we are dealing with a live question, and upon him 
who first invented it and introduced it as an institution 
of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, may the curse 
of the Almighty rest! Whoever he is, he is a wicked 
and unscrupulous impostor, unfit to be called a prophet 
of God; and as the author of the loathsome document 
known as the revelation on polygamy, he becomes so vile 
that the man of sound mind must withhold his confidence 
in any of his so-called revelations. He is fit for the 
companionship of neither man nor woman. 

There is only one man that the nineteenth century 
knew upon whom such maledictions may consistently and 
deservedly rest, and he is Joseph Smith, Jr., the pseudo- 
prophet. 

In closing my work I use the closing paragraph in 
the preface to Kelly's "Presidency and Priesthood" : 

This is not a book of flattery and compliments, to feed the 
vanity of any, but it treats of institutions and things in the light 
of facts, and men in the same way, when necessarily considered 



WAS JOSEPH SMITH, JR., A POLYGAMIST? 321 

as connected with great associations and movements in their time. 
It is sought to get at the bedrock of things, especially that 
relating to the religious world, with the thought in view that 
men should walk by the light of the very highest possible attain- 
ments in life. 

It is my highest hope that I have sincerely done all 
that the foregoing quotation implies, and that Mr. Kelly 
may know the depth of my earnestness to join him in 
getting at the "bedrock of things," I very respectfully 
call his attention particularly to Chapters XL, XII., 
XIII. and XIV. of this work, chapters in which are 
treated "institutions and things in the light of facts." 
And the work in its entirety, now that the last sentence 
appears, we confidently hope is a contribution to the 
truth as it is in Christ. 

THE END. 



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